


Tucker Family Christmas

by wheel_pen



Series: Viridian Mal [45]
Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Alternate Universe, Christmas, Fish out of Water, Gen, Imprinting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-18
Updated: 2013-04-18
Packaged: 2017-12-08 21:26:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 92,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/766191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trip takes Mal home to Earth for Christmas, to meet his family. This story is unfinished.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Viridians appear human, but are actually aliens who imprint on other people (Viridian or otherwise) and form a bond with them. They also live their entire life cycle in about six Earth years.
> 
> 2\. In each series, a different character is a Viridian, who was raised by mean Klingons on an outpost. An Enterprise crewmember is captured by the Klingons and they inadvertently form a bond with the Viridian, who helps them escape. Then they return to rescue the Viridian and bring them aboard the Enterprise. The Viridian homeworld is contacted and the Enterprise crew learn the Viridian will most likely die if they are sent away. So they end up staying on the Enterprise, and the crewmember has to adjust.
> 
> 3\. The bad words are censored. That’s just how I do things.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this AU. I own nothing and appreciate the chance to play in this universe.

_Tuesday_

Trip guided the transport down the country lane, eyes alert for any creatures that might decide to leap out from the lush cypress forest on either side. In the city the transports were automated, of course, and he'd been able to go over the details of the visit with Mal, who was clearly nervous about the whole thing. Many of the rural areas, though technically on the navigation grid, were not updated as often as they needed to be, however—especially during the rainy season, when a good storm could wash out part of the road. Trip had always kind of liked operating the transport by hand anyway, even if it _was_ slower and less efficient. When he was younger it was the closest he could get to flying.

Trip glanced at the dark-haired man in the seat beside him. Mal stared out the window at the twisty, bulbous trees draped in Spanish moss, their numbers fading into a greenish mist in the depths of the swamp. He had been amazed by this landscape at first, avidly asking Trip questions that really required a botanist, geologist, or climatologist to answer properly. But the last few kilometers he'd fallen silent, the scenery still fascinating but becoming repetitive, and besides Trip knew he had other things on his mind.

"I know me sayin' it probably only makes you more nervous," Trip repeated with a wry smile, "but you got no reason to be nervous, darlin'." Mal turned to him and gave the blond a thin but appreciative smile in return. "My Ma and Pop are just about the best people in the world, and they are going to love you," Trip added. His words were nothing new; but he hoped that somehow, if he said them often enough and with great conviction, Mal would actually start to believe him. "H—l, they love you already! Ma as good as told me not to even bother coming home if I didn't bring you, too."

"I just—" Mal paused, shook his head, tried again. "I'm sure your family's lovely, Trip. I _know_ they are. How could they not be?" The engineer grinned a little, keeping his eyes on the road. Mal's tone was just so matter-of-fact—'Of course the Earth sky is blue.' "I just—don't want to do anything _weird_ and upset them."

"You just be yourself, darlin'," Trip advised him, making a turn on a winding lane. "Tuckers can get over 'weird' pretty quick."

A house emerged from the swamp to the right and Trip smiled fondly as he pointed the transport towards it. He'd spent his whole childhood in that modest two-story home, leaving it only when he was off to college. His latest absence had lasted nearly three years; but it felt like all the years he'd been gone just fell away when he parked the transport in the driveway and hopped out. Humid air scented with peat assailed him and he took a deep breath, filling his lungs blissfully. The engineer in him wondered about the feasibility of bottling some of this air and taking it back on the ship with him.

"Bit warm, isn't it?" Mal commented, suddenly beside him. He was wrinkling his nose at the unfamiliar smells, eyes darting around to find the sources of the hoots and shrieks that emanated from the trees.

"You'll get used to it," Trip assured him with a grin.

The front door to the house sprang open suddenly and a slender woman hurried out, her silver hair hastily gathered atop her head. She was wiping her hands on her apron as Trip met her in the yard and engulfed her in a bear hug.

Shady Tucker wasn't her full name, of course; her birth certificate read _Shadow_ , a misnomer if there ever was one. By now she could laugh it off and cheerfully speculate on just what kind of daughter her parents were hoping for with that name, but she had been sure to give her _own_ children solid, classic names that, while a little over-used perhaps, at least let them become whatever they wanted to. Shady was in fact sunny and optimistic as often as she possibly could be, even in what had seemed the worst situations, and she was certainly the biggest fan her children ever had. Even when times were hectic at work—budget cuts stalling her research into particle physics, undergraduates developing personal crises that only she, their professor, could solve, and so forth—she always made time for family and friends. Trip was continually surprised when he saw recent pictures of her, with her silver-grey hair; in his mind she had the golden halo of his youth.

"Ma!" he greeted warmly, squeezing her. Wet kisses on the cheek were exchanged and he didn't want to let go of her even to lean back and grin down into her beaming face.

"Trip Tucker!" she exclaimed, even happier to see _him_ , if that were possible. "Why, you're pale as a snowbird, baby," she admonished, patting his cheek. "Don't they have sunlamps on that fancy ship of yours?"

Trip laughed and hugged her again. "Next time I see Jon, I'll tell him I gotta work tanning into my schedule," he joked.

His mother peered around his arm a moment, then practically shoved Trip aside to approach the figure still standing awkwardly beside the transport. "And you must be Mal," she surmised cheerfully. "Well aren't you the handsome one? Look at those cheekbones!" Trip stood back, arms crossed over his chest, grinning as his mother worked her magic on Mal. Already the other man seemed to be blushing faintly from the attention. "Chaz and I are just _so_ pleased to finally meet you," she went on. "We can't even _begin_ to thank you for all you've done for our boy." Mal was positively flushed now, though he managed to squeeze back when she gave him a tight hug.

"Um, thank you," he murmured hesitantly.

"You boys are just about in time for supper," Mrs. Tucker went on, looping her arm through Mal's and steering him towards the front porch. "You can just put the bags up in your room, dear," she added to Trip as she and Mal strolled by him.

"Um, I should really—" Mal tried to gently disentangle himself from her grasp and glanced back at the transport.

Trip patted him on the back and pushed him towards the house. "Oh go on then," he told Mal playfully, going to fetch their bags. "I told you she wanted to see _you_ more than _me_ anyway!"

Mal and Mrs. Tucker swept up the broad front steps to the verandah, then inside. The house was as casual and comfortable as Mal would have expected from Trip's parents—though considerably cleaner. Everything about the open, high-ceilinged rooms was bright and cheerful, as if inviting everyone nearby to come in and relax for a while. Mal just wasn't sure what to make of it.

The delicious smells wafting to their noses from the direction of the kitchen comforted him somewhat. "Are they here yet?" a voice called, and Mrs. Tucker directed Mal towards it.

"Yes, dear, they've just arrived!" she shouted back, and Mal smiled a bit even as he winced. Trip had warned him that Tuckers tended to be loud. Not that he couldn't have guessed that himself.

The two of them entered a spacious kitchen in sunny yellow and green. A tall man with the beginnings of a belly and thinning grey hair left his post at the stove and approached them with a big grin. "Trip, my goodness, I hardly recognize you!" he exclaimed, heartily embracing Mal. "I like what you've done with your hair, there's too many blonds in this family as it is!"

Supremely confused, Mal started to protest politely. "Um, no, actually—"

"Oh, pay him no mind," Mrs. Tucker interrupted, rolling her eyes. "That's merely my husband's idea of a brilliant joke!"

"Oh. Alright—"

Mr. Tucker slapped Mal on the shoulder companionably. "Just giving you a hard time," he assured the younger man jovially. "Seein' as you're part of the family now and all. What'd you do with my son, woman?" he asked his wife pleasantly.

"Oh, I've got him totin' the bags," she replied airily.

"Good, good," agreed Mr. Tucker. "That oughtta keep him outta trouble for a couple minutes."

"Excuse me," Mal said courteously, sliding out of the kitchen moments before a thump and a muffled curse were heard from upstairs.

Mal arrived in the bedroom to find Trip sitting on the hardwood floor, surrounded by their luggage in an untidy sprawl. They really hadn't brought _that_ much for themselves; but Trip had gone a little overboard with gift shopping during the two days they'd been in San Francisco for general debriefing.

"Are you alright?" Mal asked, though he knew it was Trip's pride that had suffered the most.

"Aren't you supposed to get here _before_ I fall over?" Trip groused good-naturedly as Mal pulled him up.

"I was speaking to your parents," Mal told him, a bit imperiously. Trip was glad to see he felt comfortable enough for that. "I judged that to be of greater importance to you."

"Lordy, son, did you bring half the galaxy with you?" Mr. Tucker asked, appraising the pile of bags from the doorway.

Trip grinned and moved to hug him. "Pop!"

"Could have made more than one trip," his mother needled pleasantly. "The stairs go both ways, you know."

Trip rolled his eyes even as he smiled, especially at Mal's slightly smug expression. Trip was certain the other man had been thinking the same thing.

"Alright, now you boys take a few minutes to settle in and wash up," Mrs. Tucker continued. "Supper's just about ready." A startled expression came over her face and she turned to her husband. "Now if _I'm_ up here, and _you're_ up here, who may I ask is tending to supper?"

Trip laughed as his father made a mock-horrified face then dutifully scurried back down to the kitchen. His mother leaned in to give him one more fond kiss on the cheek. "It sure is good to have you home, baby," she told him.

"It's good to _be_ home," Trip replied sincerely. He stared after her for a moment, then turned back to the room to find Mal already putting their things away in the empty drawers and closet. Trip flopped down on the bed and let him work. If it were up to Trip he'd probably never get around to unpacking and just dig things out of his suitcase when he needed them. But Mal tended to be fussier about things like that, and anyway unpacking gave him something to do.

Trip watched him quietly for a few minutes, just reveling in the feeling of being back home. "This is the room I grew up in," he pointed out, the view from the bed having changed little over the years. Mal indicated his interest in the subject. "My brother Eddie was next door, then when Lizzie came along my folks renovated the attic for her. That's where Katie would bunk when she stayed with us."

"Katie is your older sister," Mal remembered correctly, transferring some carefully matched and rolled pairs of gaudy socks from Trip's suitcase to a drawer. Clearly Mal had _packed_ the footwear, but not picked it out.

"That's right," Trip affirmed. "I mean, technically she's my half-sister, but we don't really talk about that much."

Mal made a sympathetic expression. "That's too bad. Was she born that way, or was it some kind of accident?"

For a moment Trip thought Mal was asking if Katie's _conception_ was an accident, but then understanding set in and he started chuckling. "No, she's a whole _person_ , Mal," he clarified. "It's just an expression—her mom was my dad's first wife—"

"Like Dr. Phlox?" Mal inquired.

Trip decided he needed to sit up in order to explain this. "No, my dad isn't _still_ married to his first wife. They got a divorce, which means they dissolved the marriage," he added, heading off the confusion on Mal's face. " _Then_ my dad married my mom. Except she wasn't my mom yet."

"Who was she, then?"

This was rapidly becoming more complicated than Trip had anticipated. "No, I mean—okay, look," he tried again. "Me and Eddie and Lizzie all have the same two parents. Who are downstairs right now. Okay?" Mal nodded. "Katie has just _one_ parent in common with me and Eddie and Lizzie—"

"The same parent?"

"Yes, Mal," Trip sighed. "The same parent. My dad. Same dad, different moms. Okay?"

"Okay," Mal agreed, nodding. Trip leaned back against the headboard, shaking his head. Maybe he should have brought a diagram of some kind. Mal tucked a pile of underwear into a drawer, then turned back to Trip. "But _which_ half of her is the same as you?"

Trip closed his eyes briefly. How did Mal manage to make simple things seem—so much less simple? "Forget it," he decided. "It's not that important. Just—don't ask anyone else about it, okay?" Katie had always been a little sensitive about not really feeling like part of the family anyway. Over-sensitive, in Trip's opinion, but he definitely didn't need Mal bringing it up. "If you're still confused, I'll explain it to you later, okay?"

"Okay." Mal hung some shirts up in the closet and stopped to peer at the unusual wallpaper he spotted. "Who's this?"

Trip joined him and laughed when he saw what Mal was scrutinizing. "That's a cowboy, Mal! I was really into cowboys when I was a kid." The beige wallpaper was patterned with a collage of cowboy-related scenes and accessories—riding horses and bucking broncos, singing around campfires, swinging lassos. Trip had spent many hours trying to perfect his lasso technique, but unfortunately his ambition had always been more highly developed than his hand-eye coordination. "You remember, from the movies? Like in Westerns?"

"Oh yes," Mal replied, a bit of distaste in his tone. "Those movies where people are always shooting at each other, then wandering off into the desert and killing their horses."

Trip rolled his eyes. "There's a _little_ more to it than that," he reminded Mal. " _Anyway_ ," he continued emphatically, "my folks got the whole room done up in cowboy style. Did ya see this?" Trip pulled some of his mother's slightly frou-frou guest bedroom pillows away from the head of the bed, revealing his name in dark lettering on the headboard, surrounded by the imprint of a rope. "That's burned right into the wood there, just like the cowboys used to brand things."

"Hmm," Mal remarked, examining the word. "Did you have trouble remembering which bed you were to sleep in?"

"No, Mal," Trip sighed. "It's—it's like the cowboys used to brand cows, to show who they belonged to. So my bed's branded to show it belonged to me." He smiled, quite pleased with this explanation.

"Was the bed going to wander off and get mixed in with herds of other identical beds?" Mal questioned dryly, and now Trip knew he was just teasing him.

Ignoring Mal's jibes Trip continued gleefully, "Check this out!" He drew the other man's attention to an object on the nightstand. "Now guess what this is."

"It appears to be... a _boot_ of some kind," Mal observed, nose wrinkling slightly. "A very old boot. With something on top of it."

"This"—Trip gestured to the yellowing lumpy object held aloft above the boot—"is a cowboy hat. Watch this." He reached under the hat, flipped a switch, and— _voila_! The hat glowed to life—dimly, and with a slight stutter. Mal looked at the object, then at Trip, unimpressed. "It's a _lamp_ , see?" Trip prodded. "The boot is the base and the hat is the shade!"

Mal's expression continued to be underwhelmed. "Um... what a clever method of recycling," he finally offered, trying to say something nice, and Trip sighed and switched the light off.

"You are a tough sell," he grumbled, _mostly_ with good humor. Looking around the room speculatively, he spotted another object of interest perched on top of a bookcase. He picked it up gently, wary of raising dust, but apparently his mother had already been there and he held it out to Mal proudly. "Look at _this_!"

"What is it?" Mal inquired, taking the object Trip thrust into his hands. "Oh, it's _soft_!" He hugged the stuffed animal to him.

"That was my favorite toy when I was real little," Trip informed him, adding dryly, "just about _your_ age. It's a _horse_."

"Ohhhhh." Mal examined the toy closely, moving the floppy legs and head back and forth. "I like it."

"His name is—I think you're gonna like this— _Pongo_."

"Pongo," Mal repeated, stretching out the syllables. "Yes, that's a funny word, isn't it? What does it mean?"

"Um, well, I don't know that it _means_ anything," Trip admitted. "There was this old kids' movie I really liked, about a huge family of dogs—I think the villainess would probably scare you too much—and one of the dogs was named Pongo, so I used that."

Mal looked at him. "Ah. So you named a toy horse after a fictional dog."

"Well it sounds kinda _dumb_ when you put it _that_ way," Trip informed him, mock-offended. He put Pongo back on his shelf carefully.

"Hmmm." Mal seemed to think a moment, then dug into his own suitcase and produced something small and bright blue.

"I was wonderin' where that got to," Trip told him. "Didn't realize you'd brought it along."

Silently, and with great consideration, Mal placed the blue furry stuffed rodent on the shelf next to Pongo, then nodded as if the world were now in balance.

"Looks real nice," Trip complimented him. "What'd you name that little guy again?"

"His name is Chitter-Blue-Hamster-Poogle-Pudding-Trip," Mal replied matter-of-factly.

Trip stared at him. "Chitter… Blue… Hamster… Poogle… Pudding," he repeated slowly.

"Trip."

"What?"

"No, that's the last part of his name," Mal clarified. "Chitter-Blue-Hamster-Poogle-Pudding- _Trip_."

Trip grinned. "Aw, you named him after me." Then his expression clouded a bit. "What'd you name him _Poogle_ for, though? Isn't that the planet where that horrible woman wanted to take you?"

"I wanted to commemorate the event," Mal explained, as if he had evolved beyond such petty resentments.

"Huh. And what about the _Pudding_ part, huh? What's _that_ got to do with anything?"

Mal shrugged. "I like pudding."

Trip decided that as _he_ had named his toy horse after a fictional dog, Mal might as well get to name his toy rodent after a favorite snack food. "What do you call him for short?" Trip inquired.

" _ChitterBlueHamsterPooglePuddingTrip_ ," repeated Mal, quickly.

"Well, I guess that _is_ shorter," Trip deadpanned. "We better get washed up for dinner…"

 

"Okay, now watch me, it's simple," Trip instructed. Mal studied him intently. "Placemat, plate on top, knife, fork, spoon in _these_ places, glass." Trip stood back and let Mal gaze at the finished place setting. "Not too tough, is it?"

"No, I think I've got it," Mal decided. "Shall I do the others?"

"Knock yourself out," Trip allowed. He wandered back in to the fragrant kitchen. "Anything else you need, Ma?"

A basket of homemade rolls was immediately shoved into his arms. "You can take that to the table for me," his mother told him. "Oh, wait a minute!" Trip wheeled back around. His mother was digging around in the cold box. "You can set the butter out, too," she added, placing it in his hand. "Oh, and maybe some of the strawberry preserves." A cold glass jar was wedged into Trip's arms. "That's from your Aunt Mabel, you know. Hmm, I don't know, maybe some honey as well..." A slightly sticky honey bear from the cabinet was piled atop Trip's burden. Then she was back in the cold box. "I've got a bit of marmalade here... Blueberry syrup, apple butter..."

"Mustard," suggested Trip's father helpfully from the stove. "Pickle relish, barbecue sauce..."

Mrs. Tucker pulled back from the cold box, defiantly putting the container of mustard she'd picked up back on a shelf. "Why do you always do that to me?"

Her husband smiled fondly. "Why does it always work?"

Mrs. Tucker sighed with exasperation and turned back to the cold box. "Now where was I? Oh, yes, marmalade and blueberry syrup..."

"Okay, Ma," Trip teased, "you know there's only four of us, right? And Mal's gonna eat whatever I do."

Mrs. Tucker faced him again, the marmalade in one hand and the blueberry syrup in the other. "Oh, well I suppose you're right, dear," she allowed. "You just take those to the table before they get cold."

The rolls were practically burning a hole through Trip's shirt; he sincerely doubted they'd even be cool enough to eat for several minutes. As he gratefully deposited his load on the dining room table, Trip noticed Mal staring pensively at the place settings—the _three_ place settings. The fourth plate, glass, and set of silverware remained in a pile off to one side.

Trip shook his head a little. "Mal, you're not tryin' to make everything perfectly straight or at some precise angle or something, are you? This isn't formal dining, you know, this is just me and you and my folks..." He trailed off when he saw the look Mal was giving him. "What's wrong?"

"I can't eat at the table with your family, Trip," Mal told him slowly. His tone said he'd been thinking this over, a lot, and this was the unfortunate but inevitable conclusion he'd come to.

"Mal—" Trip sighed. "Come on, it's not a big deal. I know it's kind of a big table, but tonight it'll be just the four of us..." He broke off looking at Mal.

"I will, if you want me to, of course," Mal assured him, mournfully. He gazed at the fourth chair like it was some kind of mild torture device.

"No, no," Trip decided, resigned. "I want you to be comfortable."

"I'm sorry," Mal told him earnestly. "Shall I just eat upstairs or something?"

"Absolutely not," Trip countered firmly. The thought had never occurred to him. "You're gonna eat with us. You just sit right down on the floor, if that's what you want. They won't mind." He gave Mal a reassuring smile. "Now hand me your plate."

Mal did so, watching as Trip collected the other three plates from the table as well. "Did I put them out wrong?"

"No, not at all," Trip replied. "I'm just taking them into the kitchen to get the food."

Mal stared at him. "But they were just _in_ the kitchen, weren't they?"

"Yeah, so?" Trip shrugged.

Mal appeared terribly confused. "So, you take the plates from the kitchen to the table, then you take them _back_ to the kitchen, then you bring them _back_ to the table?"

Trip looked at him, the plates stacked in his hands, the table, the door to the kitchen. "Well, yeah, that' s just what we do," he finally decided, unconcerned.

"Okay," Mal agreed quickly.

Shaking his head Trip marched back into the kitchen. "Food ready, Ma?" he prodded, setting the plates down near the stove.

"Just about," she promised. "You go on and sit down, I'll be right out."

"Great. Oh, by the way," Trip added, keeping his tone light, "Mal's gonna eat on the floor. That okay?" Both his parents gave him a look and Trip shrugged. "He's got issues about furniture."

"See, I told you it was a good idea to clean the floor in the dining room today," Mrs. Tucker pointed out to her husband, turning back to her work.

"Boy, you sure did," he admitted. "Now I wish I'd actually done it!" The comment earned him a sharp look from his wife, followed by an eye roll when she realized he was just joking. The two Charles Tuckers chuckled appreciatively.

"Oh, take the drinks on your way out," Mrs. Tucker added, before Trip could leave. "I've got iced tea, lemonade, water... There's some milk, oh but Mal probably shouldn't have that, there's some juice for the kids but we could get it out now—"

"I'm takin' the lemonade and the iced tea, Ma," Trip told her decisively, pulling the pitchers from the cold box.

"Listen to that commanding tone," his father joked, scooping something from a frying pan onto a plate. Trip's mouth watered as he guessed what it was. "It's decisions like that got him promoted so fast!"

"Ha ha," Trip responded, pushing backwards through the swinging door into the dining room. As he set the pitchers down on the table he noticed that Mal had arranged a place setting on the floor—complete with placemat—by one of the chairs.

"You're going to sit here, right?" he asked Trip worriedly. "I guess I can always move—"

"Stop fussin' so much," Trip suggested good-naturedly. "Do you want lemonade or iced tea?"

Trip liked to ask, even though he knew the answer. There was nothing shabby about his ma's home-brewed sweet tea; but he'd been looking forward to that tangy, just-sweet-enough, fresh-squeezed lemonade for days now. Maybe longer.

"Lemonade, please," Mal answered. His tone was devoid of the longing Trip's would have held, but then again he hadn't ever experienced Mrs. Tucker's homemade lemonade for himself; he was only reacting to Trip's desire for it. And his experiences with lemons and lemonade in the past hadn't exactly been pleasant.

Trip poured a glass for each of them and handed Mal his, eagerly awaiting his reaction to the first sip. Mal didn't disappoint, twisting his lips in a classic expression of aversion. Smirking, Trip took a long swallow himself and closed his eyes as the familiar flavor burst in his mouth. "Mmm-hmm," he sighed appreciatively. "Now that's something you just can't replicate."

"Bit sour, isn't it?" Mal remarked, examining the contents of his glass carefully. "Are lemon seeds safe to consume? I think I see one in here."

Trip rolled his eyes. "Just spit it out when you come to it," he advised. "And I guess you can add some sugar to it if you like, but I gotta warn ya, Ma will take it real personal."

Mal looked at him in alarm. "Um, I think it's fine, probably," he decided quickly. "It just takes a little getting used to."

"Alright, soup's on!" announced Mr. Tucker, pushing through the door with a plate in each hand. His wife followed, similarly laden. Pleasant commotion reigned for a few moments as plates were set down, moved around, and exchanged.

"That doesn't look like soup to me," Mal whispered to Trip, who waved him off.

"I have been lookin' forward to this forever!" Trip assured his parents, greedily eyeing the plate of pan-fried catfish gleaming before him. He felt Mal staring at it as well, but he wasn't getting a single bite. Trip wasn't trying to be stingy, even if it _was_ his favorite food; he just didn't want to break out the medkit when Mal's immune system tried to kill him for eating seafood.

"Now Mal, we're just gonna let the boys eat their greasy fried fish," Mrs. Tucker told her guest, handing him a plate where he sat on the floor beside Trip's chair. "You and I are gonna have some nice, healthy grilled chicken."

"Thank you," Mal replied politely, holding the plate on his lap.

Trip frowned a little at his mother, wondering when exactly she had stopped liking greasy fried fish herself, but all thought vanished when he took that first perfect, melt-in-your-mouth bite. He sighed blissfully.

Delicious as the food was, it was truly secondary to just being at home with his parents. With two and sometimes three siblings 'alone time' could be difficult to find sometimes, not that Trip usually minded—he thrived on a pleasant level of chaos, which probably explained the state of his engine room. Still, sitting in the old familiar dining room, eating his favorite foods, talking to and laughing with his parents—life on _Enterprise_ and all its duties, problems, and perks seemed very far away at the moment. And Trip couldn't really say it bothered him, temporarily at least.

First came the holiday plans updates. "Katie and Ian and the kids are coming tomorrow, we'll put them in the girls' old room," Mrs. Tucker reported. "Maybe the kids would like to camp out on the porch instead? After you fix that hole in the mosquito screen," she added pointedly to her husband.

"When's Eddie and them gettin' here?" Trip asked, sopping up part of the catfish juices with a roll.

Mrs. Tucker looked confused. "Now was that also tomorrow? Or the day after?"

"I thought it was the day after, Thursday," her husband put in, "with Lizzie and Mr. Wonderful tomorrow."

Trip smirked; his younger sister, the baby in the family, had never lacked for male company and often brought them to family events. After a while no one could manage to remember the ever-changing roster of names, hence the generic nickname.

"The day after Thursday?" Mrs. Tucker objected. "You mean Friday? But that's Christmas Day, I don't think they'd—"

"No, no," countered Mr. Tucker, waving his hand, "I meant Thursday, the day after tomorrow."

"Was that when Eddie and them were coming, or Lizzie?"

"Well, I _think_ what he said..."

Mal tugged on Trip's pant leg. "Would it be alright," he asked quietly, "if I had another biscuit, please?"

"More than alright!" Mrs. Tucker assured him, sweeping the basket of rolls off the table and holding it down for him. "Just go on and take two, while you're about it," she insisted.

"What do you want on it?" Trip questioned, mostly rhetorical. His last roll had had honey, so—

"Honey, please," Mal requested, and the bear was handed over to him.

"You like that stuff?" Trip inquired, after Mal had taken a few bites. "Or is it too sticky for ya?" He smiled a little bit.

"It _is_ sticky," Mal agreed thoughtfully. "But I think I like it. Why is the container shaped like a... _bear_?" he guessed.

"Oh, that's because..." Trip trailed off, stumped. He looked to his parents for assistance.

"Honey comes from bears," Mr. Tucker answered authoritatively. "It's their blood."

"Really?" Mal squeaked, pausing the honey-covered roll on its way to his mouth.

"Pop," Trip warned.

"It's boiled down," his father continued blithely. "That's why it's thicker."

"Oh, hush up," his wife told him. "Don't listen to him, Mal," she advised the younger man. "The honey bottle is shaped like a bear because..." Her husband's look dared her to come up with a better answer. "...because bears like to eat honey."

"Are they like vampires?" Mal questioned, intrigued.

"No, Mal," Trip insisted. "Just forget the whole 'blood' thing, okay?" He shot a dirty look at his father, who grinned unrepentantly. " _Bees_ make honey. But bears like to _eat_ honey, so the bottle is shaped like a bear. Although," he allowed faintly, "I guess that's really kind of a dumb reason."

He thought Mal might just let it go. But of course he didn't. "The butter container is shaped like a round thing," Mal observed. "Do round things like to eat butter?"

"Well, if you eat too _much_ butter, you _become_ round," Trip quipped.

"Beat me to it," his father sighed regretfully.

"And the jar of strawberry preserves has raspberries on it," Mal continued, nibbling on his yeasty roll covered in sticky bear-blood. "But aren't raspberries and strawberries both plants? So how could raspberries like to eat strawberries? Unless it's evoking some kind of composting…"

Trip buried his face in his hands. "This is what I have to put up with," he pointed out to his parents, mostly good-natured.

"Well, your Aunt Mabel can't tell one berry from another anyway, which explains her preserves," Mr. Tucker commented dryly. Thus beginning the round of gossip about family and friends. "Speaking of your Aunt Mabel, she might be bringing a new special someone to Christmas this year," he hinted with a smirk.

Trip's eyes widened as he scooped up some of the delicious mixed-berry-flavored 'strawberry preserves.' "Aunt Mabel? Really?"

"Chaz," his wife warned.

He continued, heedless. "Her ski instructor."

"Aunt Mabel _skis_?!"

"After she got that hip replaced a couple years ago she took it up..."

"Would you like another piece of chicken, dear?" Mrs. Tucker inquired of Mal, gazing at his empty plate.

He did _want_ one. He'd been too nervous to eat properly in San Francisco, but now his appetite was catching up with him. He wanted to ask Trip if it would be alright, but Trip was involved in conversation with his father. "Um..." Mal stalled.

"There's another one in there, just sitting in the pan," she tempted. Mal looked back up at Trip and started, hesitantly, to reach for his leg. "Hand me your plate," Mrs. Tucker decided for him, and he did. Because he didn't think Trip would want him to disobey his mother, after all.

Mal was partway through his second piece of chicken—because once Trip's mother had gone and gotten it for him, he didn't think Trip would want him to shun it—listening contentedly to the flow of conversation around him, about people he didn't know and their trials and triumphs, feeling the joy Trip was feeling, relaxed, at ease... when he saw The Monster. It was staring at him through the floor-to-ceiling window that looked out onto the pool, practically at eye level, fleshy jowls quivering, saliva dripping from its fangs. Mal gasped and jumped instinctively, landing lightly in a crouch in the center of the table, deftly avoiding the plates of food.

The three Tuckers stared at him for a moment. "Agile one, aren't you?" Mrs. Tucker finally remarked.

"Pass the rolls while you're up there, Mal," Mr. Tucker requested.

"Glad you didn't do anything _weird_ ," Trip added dryly.

"There's a monster out there!" Mal insisted, pointing. After he'd handed Mr. Tucker the rolls, of course.

Trip turned to look, then leaped from his chair—to crouch beside the creature on the other side of the window exclaiming happily, "Blue!" The creature barked and pawed at the window at the sight of him. "I was wonderin' where you were, old boy—"

"Charles Robert Tucker, don't you dare let that dog in while we're eating," his mother admonished as he turned towards the back door. "Mal, you'll be fine, dear, perhaps you'd like to come down now?"

Mal maneuvered himself carefully off the table and resumed his spot on the floor as Trip dropped back down into his chair with a bit of a pout. "That's a _dog_?!" Mal questioned with disbelief, peeking around Trip's chair.

"Aw, he's just a little ol' coon hound," Trip commented affectionately—about the dog, that is. "Worst he'll do is lick ya to death."

"Lick me?" Mal repeated with revulsion.

Trip patted him on the back reassuringly. "Oh, settle down, will ya? Guess I forgot to mention the dogs."

Mal looked up at him sharply. "There's more than one?"

"You forgot to mention Mal doesn't _like_ dogs," his mother chastised mildly.

"We're dog people," Trip pointed out, a bit defensively. He couldn't possibly be expected to remember and recite _every_ one of Mal's dislikes, could he? "Katie's got a couple of Westies she'll probably bring, Eddie's got a basset hound, and"—he looked at his parents questioningly—"didn't Lizzie get a dog?"

"Two," his father corrected dryly. "Dachshunds."

Trip rolled his eyes. "Great. Wiener dogs." He settled back to the remains of his meal and encouraged Mal to do the same. "Only dog he's ever seen is Porthos, Jon's beagle on _Enterprise_ ," he offered to his parents by way of explanation.

"And how is Jon?" Mrs. Tucker probed, kicking off the session of space adventure tales—highly edited, of course. No use getting his parents more worried than they needed to be, after all.

"Let me get you another piece of cheesecake, dear," Mrs. Tucker insisted, taking Mal's empty dessert plate from him.

"You're going to spoil him, Ma," Trip teased, cutting into his second piece of genuine Southern homemade pecan pie. Mal was on his knees, leaning against Trip's arm, watching his fork intently. "Sit down," Trip told him coolly. "You're not gettin' any."

"Just one little bite," Mal suggested.

"No."

"Just a little of the filling."

"No!"

"Just a bit of the crust."

Trip gave him a hard look. "You got the hypospray Doc gave you for when your throat swells shut?" Mal peered up at him with wide, blinking eyes. "You are worse than Porthos with a piece of cheddar," he accused. "But I ain't as soft as Jon, so sit back down."

Mal plopped back down on the floor, dejected, just as Mrs. Tucker came back in. "There's a nice, big piece for you, dear," she told him. "Lots of cherries. Much better than that gooey pecan stuff." Mal smiled at her appreciatively, giving Trip a slightly smug look. "You know, I remember when Trip here was just, oh, five or six years old, and he wanted a piece of the pecan pie I was makin' _so_ bad—do you remember this, baby?—anyway..."

Trip wasn't sure if he recalled the actual event, but he certainly recalled the tale. Naturally it involved him meeting an embarrassing and, in this case, sticky end. Which set off a series of similar stories from Trip's youth—Mal seemed to enjoy them thoroughly.

"—so after that, whenever he wanted to play cowboys and natives we always called him Running Bare," Mr. Tucker concluded. He and his wife laughed while Trip rolled his eyes and tried not to smile.

"Well, I'm not surprised," Mal sniffed, licking the last vestiges of cherry syrup off his fork. "Considering the number of times he's ended up running around the ship in nothing but his underwear."

"And thank you for opening that door," Trip shot back sarcastically. "Thanks so much." Glancing around at the empty plates, he added in a quick change of subject, "Speaking of opening doors, old Blue's been waitin' long enough, don't you think?"

"Oh, all right," Mrs. Tucker agreed reluctantly. "But that dog better not track any mud into my house, not after all the cleaning I did!" Seeing Mal's wary expression as he watched the beast bound towards the nearest entrance, following Trip, she suggested, "Why don't you help me put things away in the kitchen, dear? Let the boys play with their dog." Mal acquiesced gratefully.

Mrs. Tucker set him to wiping down the counters and quickly discovered that no crumb or speck of sauce was beneath Mal's notice. "So how long have you been with Trip now?" she asked casually, putting some of the (very few) leftovers in a smaller container.

"Almost eighteen months," Mal replied. He carefully removed some crockery to wipe the counter underneath it.

"I understand you boys have been in a few scrapes," she continued leadingly.

Mal practically had his nose pressed to the counter, trying to determine if something was a spill or part of the surface pattern. "A few," he agreed. "Although really, most of the time things are quite routine."

"Trip seems to think you've saved his life on more than one occasion."

"Well, that's my purpose," Mal told her, more engrossed in wiping crumbs from the tops of the drawer fronts. "I keep our quarters clean, look after him when he's sick or injured, help out around Engineering a bit, and try to protect him."

"Well, don't get me wrong, young man, we're sure glad you do it," Mrs. Tucker told him. "But I was just wonderin' what exactly _you_ get out of it."

"Oh, Trip looks after _me_ , as well," Mal insisted, scrubbing at a final stubborn spot. Satisfied with his work, he washed in his hands in the sink and laid the wet cloth carefully across the partition between the basins. "I tend to get injured a lot, so he has to put up with that, and he tries to make sure I don't eat something I shouldn't. And he tries to make sure I don't feel uncomfortable somewhere."

"And you're alright with this arrangement?" Mrs. Tucker persisted.

Mal cocked his head to one side, frowning at her a little. "Well, certainly. Why wouldn't I be?"

Mrs. Tucker smiled a little and continued with her clean-up. "I remember, back when Trip was in high school, my goodness, he was the best-lookin' boy you ever saw. Not that he ain't d—n good-lookin' now, of course," she added proudly, and Mal nodded his agreement. "But he got that gangly phase outta the way early on, and by senior year the girls were on him like mud on a pig." She shook her head a little at the memory. "Now we raised that boy right, he wasn't goin' around makin' trouble, gettin' all stuck on himself like some of the other boys. But—and I say this as his mother, you know—sometimes he had trouble noticin' what was goin' on with the people around him."

Mal looked at her questioningly, wondering where this story was headed. He'd like to know where their earlier conversation had been headed, for that matter. Mr. and Mrs. Tucker certainly seemed nice enough—more than nice, really—but maybe he'd done something to offend them somehow, or maybe Trip's mother was trying to explain how he might avoid offending the relatives who were due to arrive in the next few days. Plain-spoken as Trip often was, Mal had learned that when he wanted to explain something more delicately, it often became elliptical and sometimes confusing. He wondered if it was a family trait.

"Anyway," Mrs. Tucker went on, continuing to putter around the kitchen, "senior year Trip was havin' a little trouble with one of his classes. Boy was always sharp as a tack, of course, but him and poetry just didn't get along, and he had to finish the class to graduate. So he got himself a tutor—nice girl, from a good family—Amy Beckman." She wiped her hands on a dishcloth, thinking over her story. "Bright girl, but a little mousey, a little shy. Sat right at that table in there"—she nodded towards the dining room—"three nights a week, goin' over rhyme and meter and symbolism and metaphor and whatever else with Trip. 'Course they got to talkin' about other stuff, too, sometimes, friendly and all.

"Well, it became clear as day to me that this girl was head over heels for Trip, much as a seventeen-year-old can be anyway. And he did not have a clue. End of the semester comes, he's got himself a good grade in that poetry class, and I just _knew_ that girl was dyin' for him to ask her to the school dance or the movies, anything. Even just to keep on bein' friends with her. But I watched 'em out on that porch the last time—she's standin' there all quivery with nerves and hope, and he just flashes that grin of his and says, 'Thanks a lot for all your help, Amy. I'll see ya 'round,' and off he goes. Girl's face was about the saddest thing I've ever seen."

She faced Mal with a resolute expression. "Now don't get me wrong, I ain't sayin' he owed her a date or anything like that. And maybe if she'd really wanted one that bad she shoulda pushed harder for it. But my point is that there she was, puttin' her all into tryin' to please him, tryin' to help him, but for him, it was next to nothing. He never realized how much more it meant to her—maybe he _still_ hasn't, I don't know. Wasn't tryin' to be mean, or ungrateful, he just didn't see what was right in front of him. Didn't appreciate it." She crossed her arms over her chest. "I just wanna make sure he's not doin' that again."

Mal stared at her a moment, and then suddenly it hit him: Trip's mother was worried about... _him_. About Mal, about if _her_ son was treating _him_ right. He thought about this for a long moment, then at last spoke. "If I had to leave Trip, I would die," he told her, gazing pensively at nothing. "My people understand that, but it's an awful burden to put on someone who didn't ask for it." He looked Mrs. Tucker in the eye. "He complains a lot, but I know how he really feels. Trip takes very good care of me."

Mrs. Tucker smiled and reached up to pat Mal on the cheek. "Glad to hear it, dear," she assured him. "Otherwise, Chief Engineer or not, my oldest son would get his hide tanned but good."

Mal grinned at the imagery, even if he didn't quite understand it all. Before he could reply there was a commotion from the next room, along with a deep barking, and the kitchen door swung open suddenly, propelled by an enormous beast. In the blink of an eye Mal was crouching on the countertop he'd just painstakingly cleaned, glaring down at the baying dog.

"Come on, stop it, Blue," Trip ordered, following the dog into the kitchen.

"Trip Tucker," his mother scolded, "what did I tell you about that dog? Now you get him out of my kitchen!"

"Sorry, Ma," Trip told her, trying to drag the unwilling animal away. "I think he smells Mal, though." He gave the dark-haired man a look that said Mal probably wasn't going to like his next suggestion. "Maybe if you just let him sniff your hand or something..."

Mal gave him a perfect expression of revulsion and alarm. "Let him sniff my hand?" he repeated acidly.

"Oh, come on," Trip said, exasperated. "You're gonna wash your hands about five more times before bed anyway."

With extreme reluctance, and not a touch of martyrdom, Mal lowered one hand below the edge of the counter. Blue fell upon it immediately, snuffling with his cold, damp nose, bathing it with his warm, sticky tongue, drooling on it generously. Trip thought Mal was going to retch.

"Okay, boy," Trip said to the dog, nudging him away. "I think that's enough for now." He tried desperately to keep the laughter out of his tone and didn't quite succeed.

"Come on, you old hound," Mrs. Tucker ordered the dog, drawing him towards the doorway. "Let's go see about your supper then."

Mal was slowly pulling his hand back, gazing at it with undisguised abhorrence. Trip thought that, if given the choice, Mal might prefer to have the soiled appendage severed from his body rather than accept it back. "C'mere." Trip grabbed the wrist of the offending hand and pulled it towards the sink, leaving Mal lying down on the countertop. He turned the water on, letting it run warm, then put Mal's hand under the cleansing stream.

"I was just assuring your mother that you take good care of me," Mal revealed lazily, as Trip applied a liberal amount of soap to Mal's hand and worked it into an unnecessarily fluffy lather. The blond smiled a little affectionately. "And now you've gone and nearly let a dog eat me," Mal finished.

Trip shot him an exasperated, but also somewhat amused, glare and abruptly used the cold water to rinse his hand. "Before we go back to _Enterprise_ I'm takin' you to a spa," he decided, flinging a dishtowel at Mal to dry with. "Pay someone _else_ to pamper you."

"Hmmm, a _spa_ ," Mal repeated approvingly. "That sounds nice." He smirked a little. "I remember the _last_ time you sent me to a spa..."

"And _that_ is a story that is _not_ suitable for family Christmas," Trip reminded him quickly. "You got that?"

"Oh, there you boys are," Mr. Tucker remarked, wandering into the kitchen. If he thought it odd that Mal was half-sprawled across the counter, he gave no indication. Instead he merely ambled over to the cold box and started rooting around in it.

"Oh, are we going to eat again?" Mal asked eagerly.

Trip gave him a look. "You just had supper, with two helpings of everything!" Mal frowned at him petulantly.

"I was gonna grab a beer and sit out on the porch a spell," Trip's father told them. "Join me?"

"Sure!" Trip agreed happily, accepting the frosted bottle his father handed him.

"Beer, Mal?" Mr. Tucker inquired.

"Yes, please," Mal replied, hopping off the counter. He carefully checked the surface for any new dirt he might have introduced, picking up a microscopic speck with his dishtowel and wiping it into the sink.

Trip was waiting patiently with a second bottle of beer when Mal finally turned back. "Now, this is gonna taste a little different than what you've had before," Trip warned him. "If you don't like it you don't have to drink it."

"Okay," Mal agreed, poking at the bottle curiously. "How do I get it open?"

"With your teeth, of course," Mr. Tucker asserted cheerfully.

"Don't tell him that!" Trip countered, grabbing Mal's wrist as he raised the capped bottle to his mouth. "He'll actually do it. C'mere." He showed Mal the bottle opener affixed to the side of the cold box and demonstrated how to use it. "Now you try."

"Ingenious," Mal declared with wonder. "We haven't anything like that on _Enterprise_."

"No, we've got a warp five engine is all," Trip agreed dryly.

Mal sniffed the open beer bottle experimentally, wrinkled his nose, then took a small sip. His face twisted up, lips contorting, until Trip thought his own last sip of beer was going to come out his nose from trying not to laugh.

"I think he likes it," Mr. Tucker observed sardonically.

Mal took another sip and nodded. "I do," he decided. "It's kind of—hmm. It tastes like something that really isn't safe to drink but yet it's kind of—good."

"Maybe that should be their new slogan, eh, Pop?" Trip joked.

"Oh yeah, big seller," his father agreed. "If you've got any room left," he added, and Trip winced with a hand on his full stomach while Mal looked up hopefully, "Ma's made some of her fancy party mix already. Now where did she put that?" He pulled a large sealed container out of a corner of the counter, moving several other objects in order to free it. To some people, the degree of difficulty involved in liberating the snack would have indicated it wasn't intended to be consumed yet. But not to anyone named Charles Tucker.

"What's in it?" Mal asked curiously, hovering over the exotic golden-brown mixture as Mr. Tucker poured some into a bowl for him.

"Does it have nuts in it?" Trip cut in, grabbing Mal's grasping arm. "He can't have nuts‑‑"

"No, no, Ma left the nuts out this year," Mr. Tucker assured them.

Trip's mother had solicitously asked her son if Mal had any dietary restrictions when she'd heard he was coming along to family Christmas, and Trip had dutifully noted to her both the medically-imposed necessities _and_ the personal preferences, picky as they were. As often as he'd complained about them to her in the past, it was strangely difficult to actually list them out. Suddenly Trip wanted to smack himself in the forehead and give his mother a bear hug all at once: _that_ was why she'd eaten chicken instead of catfish at dinner, because she knew Mal couldn't have the fish but didn't want him to feel left out. Trip couldn't even imagine how she'd thought of such a thing.

Lost in his revelation, Trip had missed the first part of his father's patient explanation to Mal of what exactly was in the party mix. Trip finally looked over to see examples of each component neatly arranged on a napkin beside the bowl—he was surprised Mal hadn't gotten around to writing labels beneath them.

"Pretzel stick, toasted garlic bagel chip, cereal square, pretzel circle," Mal was repeating dutifully. "What's this one?" He pointed to a long, thin stick-like object that was not of the pretzel variety.

"Oh, that's a dried grasshopper," Mr. Tucker told him confidently.

Mal's eyes widened. "A _what_?"

"A bug," Mr. Tucker clarified. "A long, skinny insect that can jump real high. We get 'em around here a lot in the summer."

"Oh, it is _not_ ," Trip protested, watching Mal examine the cracker stick thing with great interest.

"It isn't?" his father challenged good-naturedly. "Well, then, just you tell us what it is instead."

Trip opened his mouth to reply, but nothing came out. What _were_ those cracker stick things called, anyway?

Satisfied he wasn't going to be unmasked, Mr. Tucker continued authoritatively, "Now you see, they take the legs off 'cause they're kinda spindly, and they chop off the head and tail. That's why it's flat on each end." Mal nodded, riveted. Trip leaned back against the counter smirking and sipping his beer. "Then, they roast 'em 'til they're all crunchy. Go on," Mr. Tucker encouraged. "Try it."

Mal nibbled on the cracker stick thing. "Not bad," he decided, finishing it off. "Tastes a bit garlicky."

Mr. Tucker waved that off. "Ma adds garlic powder to the whole thing," he explained. "Now this _here_ ," he went on, picking out a raisin, "is a cricket. They just let these dry in the sun so they're still juicy inside."

"Ooh, a _cricket_ ," Mal repeated. Fortunately he appeared intrigued by the idea of eating insects instead of grossed out, so Trip decided to just keep his mouth shut. After all, Mal had enthusiastically consumed the live worms at a diplomatic banquet, when all the senior staff wanted to puke.

Mal's snack needs assuaged, the three of them made their way back through the house to the front porch, where Mrs. Tucker was already relaxing in a rocking chair. "Well, I wondered what trouble you boys were up to," she commented pleasantly. Then she spied the bowl Mal carried. "Charles Tucker, did you get into that fancy party mix when I told you it was for later?!"

"You didn't tell me _anything_ about it!" Trip protested indignantly.

"The _Second_ ," his mother clarified, glaring pointedly at her husband, who shrugged sheepishly.

Mal looked stricken. "Have I done something wrong?" he asked fearfully.

Instantly Mrs. Tucker's manner softened. "Oh, no, no, dear, you are just fine," she assured him. "You just sit down and enjoy that." She gave her husband a look that said _he_ was not off the hook, though.

"Okay," Mal agreed easily. "Thank you, Ma."

Trip covered up a smirk with his hand, shaking his head. He settled down on the long white porch swing as his father eased into a rocking chair next to his wife. Mal started to kneel on the broad white planks of the porch near Trip.

"Hang on there," Trip stopped him. "You sit down there you're liable to get whacked in the head with the swing, buddy." Mal contemplated the situation with a frown. Trip patted the seat of the swing beside him. "Come on, you can sit here."

Mal looked the swing over carefully. "I don't know. Is it safe?"

"I'm sittin' on it, aren't I?" Trip pointed out reasonably. Mal's look indicated he did not necessarily find that sufficient.

Trip let out a long-suffering sigh, holding Mal's beer and bowl of fancy party mix while the other man gave the swing several experimental pushes. "What's the tensile strength of this chain?" Mal inquired, tugging gently on the line holding the swing aloft.

"Cousin Arthur sat in it once, and he's gotta be a hundred and fifty kilos, at least," offered Mr. Tucker from the sidelines.

"Oh, hush, you," his wife insisted. "Is that anything to say?"

"Just tryin' to be scientific about it," he replied cheerfully.

Now Mal was crouching by the side of the swing, earnestly examining the fastenings. "When were these bolts last tightened?" he asked, testing one. "May I see your maintenance logs, please?"

"They don't—they don't _have_ maintenance logs, Mal," Trip tried to explain, in between chuckles. "It's a _porch swing._ Would you just sit down?"

Giving Trip a look that might have said, _You dare to compromise my safety?_ , Mal finally consented to slowly seat himself on the swing, instantly grabbing the wooden arm with one hand and Trip's leg with the other when the swing started to move.

"See? It's nice," Trip assured him. He gently rocked the swing back and forth by pushing his feet against the porch floor.

"Hmm," Mal remarked enigmatically. Then he scooted closer to Trip, tipped himself over, and rested his head against Trip's leg while pulling his feet up on the swing.

Trip kept his gaze heavenward with an expression of supplication as he waited for Mal to get comfortable. Conveniently this also meant he didn't have to make eye contact with his no doubt bemused parents. "Settled there?" he asked dryly after a moment.

"Yes, thank you," Mal confirmed, taking his beer and snack back.

"How are you gonna drink that without spilling?" Trip wanted to know. Since he would very likely be spilling onto _Trip_.

"Carefully."

Trip just shook his head and kept rocking the swing gently. The sun was setting behind the house, casting strange shadows all around them, and the trees surrounding the place were coming alive with the wildlife that woke up in the cool winter evenings. Blue the coon hound meandered up the front steps from somewhere, settling himself beneath the porch swing with a sigh. In a few moments his moist snores added to the natural chorus around them.

Trip sipped his beer and stared out at the landscape that had once been a daily sight for him, too commonplace to even merit much scrutiny. Now he compared it to the view on a dozen different worlds, imagining how someone from another planet—such as the someone with his head on Trip's lap—might feel about it, seeing it for the first time. They might appreciate its beauty, the life teeming within it, the solitude it offered as a buffer from the town a few miles away... but would they ever understand what it really _meant_ to the people who had lived on it for years, for the better part of their lives? There were a million hours of chores and repairs poured into this place, a million hours of playtime adventures with friends and siblings, a hundred family gatherings, fights and jokes and crushes and even a few genuine scares. How could anyone else ever comprehend it all?

Although if anyone else could even come close, it would be Mal.

As if on cue, and perhaps it was, Mal cuddled his face against Trip's leg and murmured, "I like it here. Can we have a porch swing on the ship, please?"

"Yeah, I'll mention that to Jon first thing," Trip teased him lightly, fingers running through Mal's short dark hair.

An old-style hauling transport rumbled down the dirt road past the house, its bed filled with an oversized pine tree. The three Tuckers raised their hands to wave at it and the driver waved back. "Who was that?" Mal inquired.

Trip shrugged. "No idea. But he was drivin' down this road, so he must be a neighbor."

"It was Richard Green, wasn't it?" Mrs. Tucker asked. "Lives down at the old Harmon place."

"No, it's Bob Melville lives at the Harmon place," her husband corrected. "Remember how he married that gal from Atlanta who tried to grow all those pink flowers in the yard?"

"That wasn't at the Harmon place," Mrs. Tucker countered. "That was down at the Suarez's."

"Was it?"

"The pink flowers were, at least..."

"What's this?" Mal held something new from his bowl up to Trip.

"Sunflower seed," Trip identified after a moment.

"Mind you chew it real good," his father advised, "or you'll get a big ol' sunflower growin' in your stomach."

"Pop!" Trip admonished, patting Mal's shoulder reassuringly. "Would you quit tellin' him that stuff, he doesn't know when you're teasing." Trip had been fourteen before he had dared to eat a sunflower seed without mashing it to bits first. His father appeared unremorseful.

"Well," Mrs. Tucker announced, standing from her chair, "it's gettin' a mite chilly for me out here. Reckon I should go warm up the pool for you boys?"

Trip's face lit up. "I forgot about the pool," he admitted, delighted. "That would be great. The hot tub, too?" he added hopefully. "I think Mal would like that better, he's not so fond of the water."

Not that his mother even needed that much persuasion. "Well, of course, baby," she told him. "It's there to be used, after all."

"A pool?" Mal said quietly, after Mrs. Tucker had gone inside. "Like in water polo?"

"Not quite that big," Trip clarified, scratching behind Mal's ear in that way that seemed to soothe him a bit. "You don't have to try it if you don't want to, but I think you'll like the hot tub."

"What's that?"

"It's like—like a big bathtub," Trip tried to describe. "But you wear a swimsuit in it. And the water's always warm."

"Well, that doesn't sound so bad," Mal decided slowly.

"Just make sure the gators haven't slipped in," Mr. Tucker counseled.

"Pop!"

Trip's mother returned to the porch. "There you go, dear, gettin' all toasty for you."

"Thanks, Ma." Trip stood and pulled Mal up with him.

"Now, has it been half an hour since you've eaten?" Mrs. Tucker wondered aloud. "You had that second piece of pie back—when was that..."

"It was definitely more than half an hour ago, Ma," Trip assured her, a little impatiently.

"Oh, but Mal's _just_ eaten..." his mother countered with concern, looking at the empty bowl in Mal's hands.

"Ma, he's not gonna do laps, he's just gonna sit in the hot tub," Trip protested. "Also—we're not eight years old."

"I'm three-and-a-half," Mal supplied helpfully. Trip shushed him.

Trip's mother gave him a speculative look. "I was just thinking of the time you went to Annie Cleghorn's birthday party and ran around too soon after eating. Do you remember that, baby?" Trip's expression said he did, but he wished other people didn't. Mrs. Tucker looped her arm through Mal's as they headed back indoors and added conspiratorially, "Got sick to his stomach and threw up all over the birthday cake. Poor little girl just cried and cried."

"That's very sad," Mal observed. "And probably quite humiliating as well."

"Yes, it was, thank you," Trip informed him over his shoulder.

Mrs. Tucker winked at Mal and took his empty bowl and beer bottle. "Now you boys just stay up as late as you want," she insisted as they stopped at the foot of the stairs. "Just turn off the pool heater when you're done. Your father and I are gonna watch our show in a little while."

"Okay, thanks, Ma," Trip replied. "We probably won't be out there _too_ long."

Once back upstairs in the cowboy-themed bedroom, Trip began digging through the dresser drawers. "Where'd you put my swim trunks, Mal?" he finally asked.

"Are they like shorts, but an obscene shade of blue, and decorated with a cartoon figure of a person _also_ wearing shorts and standing on a board?" Mal replied, disapproval dripping from his voice.

Trip smirked a little. "The guy is _surfing_ , and yes, those are swim trunks."

Mal pointed to the bottom drawer on the right. "I segregated them from the rest of the clothing, along with the other objectionable pieces that somehow made their way into your luggage."

"Yes, I noticed you conveniently forgot to pack some of them," Trip commented, opening the drawer. "Good thing I thought to check, huh?" Mal remained unapologetic about the omissions.

Trip pulled the surfer trunks out and held them up with delight. "These are fun, festive, colorful—"

"Repellant," added Mal. Trip gave him a look. "Water repellant," Mal amended brightly.

"Well, don't you worry, darlin'," Trip assured him, pulling something else out of the drawer. "I got another pair for _you_."

Mal automatically caught the cloth that was thrown at him and unfolded it distastefully. "These are hideous," he noted flatly.

"Aw," Trip sighed, his expression disappointed, although he knew Mal would realize he was just kidding. "But they've got pineapples on them." Fluorescent yellow pineapples on a field of lime green, that is. "You _love_ pineapples!"

"These depictions are not botanically correct," Mal pointed out. Still, at Trip's look, he let out a sigh of resignation and began to change.

Trip grabbed a couple of towels from the bathroom and they set out for the pool. He hadn't grown up with it, by any means; he and his siblings always went to friends' houses or the community pool. But a few years back they had decided to go in together and get the pool and hot tub for their parents, since the doctor had recommended it as a good way for the elder Tuckers to get in some low-impact exercise. Trip knew that his father, at least, was out doing laps every morning.

"What are gators?" Mal asked suddenly, as they stood on the patio looking out on the rippling water.

"Nothing for you to worry about," Trip assured him. "Look around. See? We're not really outside. The whole place is screened in. So the gators and bugs and birds aren't going to get in. Although," he added, remembering the last time he'd gone for an after-dark swim here many years ago, "let's leave the light off, just in case. I don't need to spend the next three days itching mosquito bites."

Trip directed Mal to the hot tub and dropped one of the towels beside it. "You see? This is all there is to it. Just a big bathtub."

Mal crouched down to examine it more closely, and Trip braced himself for the questions. "What's the water recirculation rate for this device?" he probed.

"I don't know."

"Well, how does the filtration system work?"

"Well it—it sucks the water in, filters it, and spits it back out," Trip tried.

Mal looked up at him. "Please, don't get too technical. I'm not an engineer, you know."

"Would you just try it?" Trip insisted. "Just stick a foot in."

Mal sat down on the tiled edge and slowly lowered one foot into the water. This act was accompanied by much wincing, lip-biting, and jerking as his foot became accustomed to the higher temperature.

"Well?" Trip finally prodded, having been, he felt, exceedingly patient.

"I think I like it," Mal decided, and scooted the rest of his body into the water.

"Uh, Mal?" Trip asked as the other man wriggled around in the water. "You okay?"

"Oh, yes," Mal sighed blissfully. It was almost a groan. "This is quite lovely." He couldn't sit on the bottom of the hot tub without the water going over his chin, but sitting on the submersed bench around the inside left too much damp skin exposed to the cool air. So Mal compromised by bobbing halfway in between somehow, eyes closed to better appreciate the heavenly sensation of perfectly warm water surrounding him.

Trip smiled a little. "Okay. I'm gonna get in the pool then." He pushed off the edge right into the deep end, which was only about three meters. Trip paddled around, getting his bearings—it had been far too long since he'd been in the water—then swam up to the narrow strip of tile separating the pool from the hot tub. Actually they weren't entirely separate; a small overflow of warm water from the smaller pool poured into the larger, purely for the aesthetic effect.

"Still like it?" Trip queried the mostly-submerged man, although the expression on Mal's face told him all that he needed to know.

"Can we have one of these on _Enterprise_ , please?" Mal asked dreamily.

"Instead of the porch swing?" Trip teased.

Mal's eyes popped open. "We can't have both?"

Trip laughed and splashed some cooler water over the tile at Mal, who backed away grimacing. "Don't think we're gonna get either, so enjoy 'em while you can."

Trip swam the length of the pool a few times, not dedicated laps, just messing around really, floating and splashing and diving. He came up from retrieving a pair of swim goggles that had sunk to the bottom of the pool to find Mal leaning on the strip of tile, watching him with concern.

"It's okay," Trip assured him, shoving his dripping hair off his forehead. "Just gettin' these. Here's a new word for you: goggles." He set the objects in question on the edge of the pool.

Mal nodded and settled back into the hot water. "Ooh, _goggles_ ," he repeated. "That's a funny word. What do those things do?"

"It's like a mask you can wear underwater if you want," Trip explained. "So you don't get water in your eyes. It bothers some people." Trip frowned suddenly, a thought tickling in the back of his mind. "There's some safety rule about hot tubs... You should only be in one for twenty minutes at a time?" He shook his head, unable to dredge up more. "Something like that. You better get out for a while." Mal let out a whine of protest. "Now come on," Trip told him sternly. "I don't want you to overheat. C'mere." They both moved to the waterfall separating the two pools and Trip stretched to feel Mal's cheek and shoulder. "You are pretty warm," he judged. "Go on, hop out for a bit and cool down."

Muttering viciously, Mal did as he was told. He sat on the patio wrapped in his towel, glaring at Trip poisonously. "Don't give me that look," Trip warned. "I'm just tryin' to look out for you here." Mal snorted. "Why don't you get in _this_ pool for a while?" Mal looked away, clearly uncomfortable. "Look, I'm not gonna make ya," Trip assured him, "but you could sit on the steps at the shallow end for a few minutes. It's heated, too, just not as much as the hot tub."

He let Mal think it over for a bit. "Just sit on the stairs?" Mal repeated.

"Yeah, the bottom's only about half a meter at that end," Trip explained. "It slopes down so it's deeper out here. But you can stay by the steps."

Hesitantly Mal stood and wandered towards the shallow end of the pool. Trip joined him, standing at the foot of the stairs to show him where the bottom of the pool was. Clutching the railing firmly, Mal toed the water. "It's cold," he complained.

Trip rolled his eyes. "You just got out of a hot tub," he pointed out. "Everything feels cold." Including the mild breeze blowing over Trip's wet skin as he waited for Mal to make his decision.

Resolutely Mal folded his towel on the patio by the stairs and put a foot on the first step, then the other foot. He gripped the railing tightly. "See? Not so bad," Trip encouraged. "Look, I'll show you how deep it is." He began to back up slowly, forcing his way through the water, until he had to start paddling about halfway down the pool. "That's how far you can go with your feet still touching bottom."

Mal advanced to the second step. "I think I'll just stay up here, thanks."

Trip shrugged pleasantly. "Suit yourself." He was just glad Mal had even consented to _trying_ the larger pool.

Trip continued to splash around at the deep end for a few minutes, then returned to the other part of the pool to see Mal sitting on the bottom at the foot of the stairs, arm twined around the stair railing. He seemed to be working rather hard to avoid floating away.

"Can't fight physics, darlin'," Trip told him with a smile.

"I feel all wobbly," Mal complained.

"Well, some people _like_ floating," Trip tried to point out. "It's very relaxing." To demonstrate he laid back in the water, letting his feet bob up to the surface until he was drifting along the top of the water. "Mmm," he sighed happily. "Like the softest bed ever."

Mal watched him curiously. "The spa had a zero-gravity sleeping chamber I stayed in one night," he remembered. "Is it like that?"

"Mmmm... what spa?" Trip asked distractedly, flicking his hand lightly to send himself spinning in the water.

"The one I stayed in while you were having sex with the squid lady."

Trip abruptly tensed and just as abruptly plunged back into the water momentarily, until he got his feet back under him and stood up, glaring at Mal.

"Are you alright?" the other man asked innocently.

"To float, you have to be relaxed," Trip informed him shortly. "And I thought we weren't going to talk about that incident at family Christmas?"

"Well, there's no one else around right now," Mal pointed out. "And anyway, you said floating _made_ you relaxed. How can it _make_ you relaxed if you have to _be_ relaxed in the first place?"

Shaking his head, Trip attempted to recreate his partially-submerged pose. "You have to be relaxed," he repeated, "and as you float, it relaxes you _more_." It made perfect sense to him, anyway.

"Oh."

Trip tried to clear his head of all less-than-pleasant thoughts and focus on the sensation of the water lapping gently at his skin, buoying him up, the little waves made by the pool filters nudging him in one direction or another. After a moment he opened his eyes, staring up through the windows above at the stars glittering down from the clear, black sky. He remembered lying out in the backyard as a kid, looking up at the stars and contemplating their beauty, the vastness of the universe, the way the stars could make a person feel so small and yet so special at the same time. And he was staring up at them again, thinking the same way—except now he had actually flown among those stars, seen Earth's sun as a star from alien worlds. The thought was somehow mind-boggling and calming at the same time.

"You're right, this _is_ kind of nice," Mal chimed in at just the right moment.

Lazily Trip swirled his entire body in the pool so he could see Mal, floating serenely on the water's surface—with one hand still gripping the stair railing, like a rope mooring a boat to the dock. Slowly he waved a hand in the water, propelling him towards Mal at an easy pace. "Gimme your hand," Trip suggested, hoping he didn't send the other man splashing to the bottom with the request.

There was a slight hesitation, just enough to show Trip that he had actually thought about it and wasn't just obeying blindly, and then Mal's free hand swung out and linked with Trip's. "Now let go of the railing. Just relax." Another pause, then Trip felt the two of them begin to drift back down the pool. He smiled a little. "Real nice..."

"The stars look funny from here," Mal commented after a moment. "Different from the outpost. And the ship, of course." He didn't seem to require a response, so Trip simply floated.

A few minutes later Trip felt something bump his foot and opened his eyes to see that it was the back of the pool, the edge near the hot tub. The deep end. Calling upon all the discipline some people would be surprised to learn he possessed, Trip kept his body and mind relaxed, to keep floating and avoid alerting Mal to their position. Trip pushed off gently from the wall, paddling slightly until they were back at the shallow end. Mal had his eyes closed the entire time.

"You wanna get back in the hot tub a little more before bed?" Trip asked him.

Mal maneuvered himself back onto the stairs of the pool, almost forcing his muscles to work again. "I think I could fall asleep right here," he admitted, leaning against the railing.

"So... no more hot tub tonight, then?" Trip teased, and Mal straightened immediately.

"Just one more time?" he suggested hopefully. "You only let me be in it for a few minutes before."

"Well get on into it, if you want," Trip told him, grinning. "Fifteen or twenty minutes is all, then we'll go in, okay?"

Mal was already slogging across the patio towards the hot tub, with the distinctive waddle of someone wearing shorts heavy with water. He lowered himself into the hot tub with an expression of utter joy and heaved a sigh Trip could hear all the way across the pool.

"I like your parents," Mal told him suddenly, and Trip splashed towards the hot tub.

"I think it's safe to say they like you, too," he smiled.

"I'm sorry I jumped on the table at dinner."

Trip waved it off, flicking his hand through the waterfall from the hot tub to the pool. "Don't worry about it. At least you didn't step on anything."

Mal looked slightly affronted. "Of course not."

Trip grinned. After a pause he remarked, "You know those weren't really bugs in the fancy party mix, don't you?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Mal huffed. Trip shook his head, admiring Mal's ability to play along. At least until he added, "They _must_ be insects. Pop said so." And that was that.

"Okay," Trip sighed. "But don't go trying to open any beer bottles with your teeth, okay?"

Mal gave him a put-upon look. "He was just teasing then. Couldn't you tell?"

Trip tried to stifle his chortling while keeping his head mostly above water and not swallowing too much water. It was challenging. He did a few more dives, swimming the length of the pool underwater once or twice, then surfaced and turned to Mal reluctantly.

The other man felt his emotions and opened his eyes, resigned. "Time to get out?"

"Yeah, I think that's enough for one night," Trip agreed unwillingly. Mal sighed. "I promise you'll get to be in the hot tub again before we leave," Trip added quickly.

The two of them climbed slowly out of the water, the breeze raising goose bumps on their damp skin even as they tried to towel dry. Mal bundled his towel around his shoulders, shivering a little. "Now we're gonna run upstairs and take quick showers," Trip informed him, his hair sticking straight up where he'd rubbed it with the towel. "Just quick ones, mind you, just to get the chemicals from the pool off—"

" _Chemicals?!_ " Mal repeated with alarm. He gazed back at the pool as though it were a puddle of alien sewage. Then he faced Trip, the man who had encouraged him to get _into_ the puddle of alien sewage.

"Now don't get your shorts in a twist," Trip insisted. "They're just in the water to keep it sanitary, you know? So microorganisms don't grow in it. You wouldn't want that, would you?"

"No," Mal agreed resolutely. "Then it would be like _lake water_."

Trip decided this wasn't the time to remind Mal that Trip had swum in lake water on many occasions and thoroughly enjoyed it. "So that's what the chemicals are for. They aren't going to hurt you. But they aren't so great for your skin and hair if you just leave them on all night. So just a quick shower to rinse off, alright?"

"Okay," Mal nodded. "Can we go in now?" He was huddled under his towel.

"Yeah, sure." Together they headed back into the house, Trip flicking off the pool heater as he passed it. They hurried up the stairs, chilly. "Oh, and rinse out your swim trunks, too," Trip added, grabbing some pajamas from a drawer in the bedroom. "Hang 'em up to dry in the bathroom."

"The chemicals aren't good for clothing, either?" Mal guessed.

"You got it. I'll use the hall bathroom," Trip continued from the bedroom doorway. "Remember, _quick_. Like, five minutes."

Mal nodded dutifully. Trip wondered briefly if he should have brought the little device he'd installed in their bathroom on _Enterprise_ that turned the water ice-cold if Mal had been in for more than ten minutes—it was the only thing that had saved Trip's hot water ration from annihilation. Then he decided not to worry about it for once and went off to take his own shower.

Six minutes later Trip returned to the bedroom, to see that Mal was already out of the shower and dressed in his pajamas, with his gaudy green and yellow swim trunks draped over the rod for the shower curtain. They dripped steadily onto a towel Mal had placed beneath them. Trip added his, finding Mal hovering over his shoulder to adjust the width the towel covered.

"Let's see if Ma and Pop are still up," Trip suggested, words deforming as he yawned. "We can say good-night."

Together they padded back downstairs through the dark house, drawn to the bluish light emanating from the family room. Trip's parents were settled in front of the comm screen, Pop in his recliner and Ma on the couch, watching their show.

"What is the _Golden Hind_?" Pop said to the screen.

Ma rolled her eyes. "What is the _Victoria_?" she suggested instead. Then she caught sight of Mal and Trip. "Done swimming for the night, boys?"

"Yup," Trip agreed, settling onto the couch beside her. Mal plopped down on the floor between Trip's feet.

" _And the correct answer is..._ _What is the_ Victoria?" the host on the show revealed. Pop shook his head while Ma smiled with satisfaction.

They watched the contestants field a few more questions. Trip could tell Mal didn't understand what was going on, but apparently he was too tired to pepper them with inquiries. Which was quite tired, indeed. After a day of travel, overeating, and swimming, Trip couldn't say he felt any differently himself.

"Oh, did I tell you, you were a question on our show?" Ma mentioned excitedly during a commercial break.

Trip lolled his head towards her sleepily. "Only about three dozen times, Ma," he reminded her with a smile.

"'Chief Engineer on _Enterprise_ , the first warp five space exploration vessel,'" Ma recited happily.

"Who is Charles Tucker III?" replied Pop promptly.

"You guys do this routine every night?" Trip teased.

Ma ignored him. "The skinny fellow got your name right, but he forgot to phrase it in the form of a question, so the gal with the funny glasses scooped him. She was a clever one." She sighed pleasantly at the memory and Trip chuckled a little. "Could hardly watch the rest of the show, seemed like everyone we knew was calling to tell us about it!"

"Except for the ones _you'd_ already called, right?" Trip guessed.

Mal tipped his head back between Trip's knees and Trip buried his fingers in his hair, mussing it thoroughly. Mal made a face at him and tried to smooth it back out. "Shall we have anything to eat?" he whispered loudly.

"Hungry again, babydoll?" Ma asked hospitably. "Think I've got some apples and cheddar in the cold box..."

"No more food," Trip told him firmly. "You're about to fall asleep right there."

"I love apples and cheddar," Mal protested, but weakly.

"You've never had it before," Trip pointed out.

A few minutes later Trip worked up the energy to ask, "So Katie and them are coming tomorrow?"

"Yes, but not until late afternoon, early evening," Ma replied. "Anything you want to do tomorrow, baby?"

Trip shrugged. "When are we trimmin' the tree?"

"Thought we'd wait for tree-trimmin' 'til the kids were here," Ma suggested.

"Maybe we could put the lights up on the house tomorrow," Trip offered.

"Hey, that's a good idea," Pop agreed.

Mrs. Tucker paused. "Oh, let's wait 'til later on that," she responded casually. "At least 'til Katie and Ian get here. Maybe the next day even." There were _certain people_ who just didn't need to be getting up on ladders and roofs to put up Christmas lights, because they weren't getting any younger no matter how many laps they swam each morning. That's what they had grown children for, after all. But sometimes _certain people_ were difficult to convince of this.

"Maybe we could go out in the boat," Pop put forward. "Be a good day for it."

"Yeah, it would," Trip decided slowly.

"I'll make some sandwiches for you," Ma told them encouragingly. "If you get up to the lake, maybe you'll even catch something for supper, hmmm?"

"That'd be fun," Trip sighed. Then he frowned a little, giving Mal's hair a small tug. "You wanna go out in the boat, Mal?"

Mal looked at him upside down again. "A boat? On the water? Like a yacht?"

Trip snickered tiredly. "No, like a motor boat. But yes, on the water." Mal failed to agree immediately, as Trip had suspected.

"Here I was hopin' Mal might wanna stick around the house and help me out with a few things," Ma hinted. "You go on out in the boat if you want to, though, dear."

"What sort of things?" Mal asked.

"Oh, exciting things," Ma assured him. "There's some more cleaning I need to do, and I've got to go to the grocery store again, and the hardware store... Get the mail... Fix that hole in the porch screen," she added pointedly, giving her husband a look.

"That sounds fun," Mal decided. He craned his neck back to look at Trip. "Can I stay home and help Ma clean and go to the grocery store, please?"

"Well, if you're sure you really want him, Ma," Trip told her. "He can be kind of a pain." He ruffled Mal's hair playfully.

"Oh, I'm sure we'll have much more fun than you boys out on that nasty, smelly lake," Ma insisted, giving Mal a wink.

"Alright then," Trip agreed. He gave his mother an appreciative look and she smiled and nodded. He would've taken Mal out in the boat if he'd insisted... but somehow Trip couldn't imagine that the voyage would be all that pleasant with Mal worrying over every little thing.

After a few more rounds the show ended. Pop switched off the comm screen and everyone hauled themselves up reluctantly.

"Good night, baby," Ma told Trip, giving him a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

"'Night, Ma."

"Glad you're home, son," Pop added, giving the same.

"Me, too. 'Night, Pop."

"And we are so glad to have you here, too, Mal," Ma assured him, doling out another hug.

"Thank you, Ma. Good night."

"Don't let the bedbugs bite," Pop advised, hugging Mal.

"Bedbugs?" Mal repeated.

"Pop!" Trip admonished.

"Can bedbugs be put into fancy party mix?" Mal queried, adding helpfully, "That was a joke."

"Think you've been spendin' too much time with Tuckers, babydoll," Ma assessed fondly.

They all started to amble off to bed. "Did you check the back door?" Ma asked her husband suddenly.

"I think so," he replied uncertainly. "Or was that _last_ night?"

"Mal," Trip announced firmly. The other man lost his sleepy demeanor immediately. "Do a perimeter sweep of the house. Make sure all the entrances are secure."

"Okay," Mal agreed. He trotted off.

Mrs. Tucker shook her head at her son. "He's quite the fella, isn't he?" she remarked.

"Yeah," Trip replied simply. "Thanks for takin' him tomorrow. Don't think he would've liked the boat much. I hope he doesn't give you too much trouble," he added hesitantly.

Ma waved him off. "I think I can handle him," she smiled. "He seems like a sweetheart." Trip's expression said he wasn't going to comment on that. "Well, good night, baby." With that Trip's parents headed off to bed.

Trip waited in the family room a few more minutes, until Mal reappeared. "All the doors and windows are locked," he reported dutifully. This was a safety matter, after all, and that was Mal's purview.

"Alright," Trip smiled at him. "Good job. Let's go to bed, huh?"

They trooped back upstairs to the cowboy-themed bedroom and turned off the light, bathing the room in moonlight from the window. And the faint orangey glow of a nightlight shaped like a campfire with a cowboy crouching over it. Mal snickered one last time.

"Hush, you," Trip ordered, climbing into bed. Mal snuggled up against him, his nose pressed into the back of Trip's neck. It had taken him a while to get used to sleeping that way... but now, Trip had to admit, he didn't sleep nearly as well when he _didn't_ have it. "Good night, Mal."

"Good night, Trip."


	2. Chapter 2

_Wednesday_

For an instant Trip thought he was dreaming when he sleepily opened his eyes, dreaming of his cowboy-themed bedroom at home in Florida. Then he blinked a few times and realized he wasn't dreaming at all, and a warm feeling rolled through his body, like butter in a hot skillet. For just a little while, he didn't have to be Commander Tucker, Chief Engineer—much as he had worked hard for that title, and enjoyed nearly every minute of having it, at the moment he was content just to be Trip, home for Christmas like so many years in the past.

Although he'd never woken up in this room with someone else in bed with him.

Okay, except for that one time, which he dared not even think about in case his mother picked it up on her special mom-radar. A cowboy-themed bedroom wasn't exactly conducive to setting a mood of romance, after all... which he was certain his parents had thought about when they refused to let him redecorate in high school.

Of course the person in bed with him didn't care about such things. "Shall we have breakfast soon?" Mal asked quietly, as soon as he sensed Trip was awake.

"Darlin', how the h—l can you be hungry, you stuffed yourself last night and have just slept on it for the last"—Trip squinted at the chrono on the nightstand—"nine hours... Nine hours?" he repeated, slightly startled. He yawned widely and began to stretch, dislodging Mal. "Did I really sleep for nine hours?" On _Enterprise_ he usually popped out of bed after six.

"You can probably sleep longer," Mal suggested.

But Trip was already shaking his head, sitting up in the bed. "Nah, I'm on vacation, can't just sleep it all away! Besides," he added, sniffing the air, "I think Ma's makin' us breakfast. Didn't you mention breakfast?" He grinned at Mal, ruffling his hair.

Mal smoothed it back down. "I _did_ mention breakfast," he agreed. "I expect we'd better get ready, then."

 

The pile of golden-brown pancakes was swimming in melted butter and maple syrup, and blueberry syrup for good measure. Trip took one bite and his eyelids fluttered in pleasure. "Ma, these are the best pancakes in the world. On several worlds," he amended happily.

His mother smiled at him over the counter in the kitchen. "Glad you enjoy them, baby. Where's Mal today?"

"Grooming," Trip snorted, through a mouthful of pancakes. "He can't leave the bathroom until every tooth has been individually polished, every pore scrubbed, every strand of hair set in position." He gave another snicker to convey exactly what he thought about the necessity of these actions.

"Well, seems to be rubbin' off on you, baby," his mother observed with a smirk, tousling his shower-damp hair.

Trip rolled his eyes. "Yeah, you shoulda seen the look on his face when I started to hop outta bed and come on down here in just my PJ's. Just about tackled me and rolled me into the shower first." He chuckled a little. "You remember me tellin' you about his plan to _lick_ himself clean, when he learned how the water on the ship is all recycled?"

"Guess he didn't go through with it," Ma replied dryly.

"Thank G-d, no," Trip agreed.

"Are you talking about me?" inquired a curious voice.

"What's to talk about?" Trip smirked.

"Good morning, Mal," Ma told him cheerfully.

"Good morning, Ma."

The older woman resumed her bustle around the kitchen. "Now just what would you like for breakfast this morning, hmm? We've got cereal and oatmeal and toast and eggs and sausage…"

Trip could have told her there was no use listing the alternatives. "Are there any more pancakes?" Mal asked politely, eyeing Trip's plate.

"Comin' right up, baby." Ma poured some fresh circles of batter onto the griddle, then opened the cold box door invitingly. "And what would you like to drink?"

"I would like what Trip has, please," Mal requested innocently.

"Hold up a minute," Trip countered, after a moment. "No milk for Mal." The other man began to pout. "You can have the orange juice, but no milk."

"Just a little sip?" Mal wheedled. "Just a lick around the rim?"

Trip gave him a hard look. "You may have _one_ , _small_ sip of milk," he decided, bringing the glass closer. He pulled it back as Mal reached for it eagerly. "You take more than you should and I will knock this glass outta your hands, got it?" Mal nodded, eyes fixed on the white liquid. Trip finally allowed him to have it and Mal took his swallow eagerly. "That's it, give it back," Trip ordered, removing the glass. Mal watched it recede longingly.

"There you go, baby, have some orange juice," Ma told him, setting the glass before Mal and turning back to the griddle to flip the pancakes.

"Thank you, Ma." Then, "There's _things_ in my orange juice! There's _things_ in it, Trip!"

"It's called _pulp_ , Mal," Trip told him, giving him a little nudge to remind him it was rude to complain.

"I can't drink it if it's got _things_ in it," Mal protested, but at least this time he was whispering. Trip shushed him anyway.

Ma turned away from the griddle with a concerned frown. "Oh dear. I thought I got pulp-free juice for you, baby." She headed back to the cold box. "Maybe I picked up the wrong bottle…"

"Don't worry about it, Ma," Trip insisted. He turned to Mal. "Go and get yourself some apple juice instead, I saw some in there. I'll take that."

Mal started to slide off the stool but of course Ma replied, "I'll get that for you, honey. Here's the OJ I got—it _says_ pulp-free…"

Mal opened the container and peered inside speculatively. "It's got _things_ in it," he confirmed.

"Don't breathe all over the orange juice," Trip instructed, taking the container away and closing it. "Drink your apple juice." Ma had set a fresh glass before Mal just before dashing back to the griddle to rescue the pancakes. "Oh, you know what it is, I bet?" he mused after a moment. "Mal's used to _Enterprise_ food, where everything's resequenced protein. So when he asks the beverage dispenser for 'pulp-free orange juice,' it just gives him straight orange juice—the pulp was never there in the first place."

"So?" Mal asked in confusion.

Trip gave him a look. " _So_ , when you're bottling _real_ orange juice on Earth, they'd have to _strain_ the pulp out, and it's hard to get every single bit of it." He nodded at the second glass of orange juice in front of him. "You've never had _real_ orange juice before. I bet you would like it…"

Mal thought it over, then shook his head. "There's _things_ in it," he repeated.

"Well I'm sorry about that, baby," Ma told him, setting the plate of pancakes in front of him.

"Don't worry about it, Ma," Trip repeated. "I just didn't think about that."

"It's okay, Ma," Mal assured her. "I'm just _unreasonably picky_."

"Here's the maple syrup." Trip handed Mal the bottle, knowing he'd want some. "And the blueberry syrup."

Mal began dousing his pancakes in the sticky substances. "Where does maple syrup come from? It's very much like honey."

"Um, it's tree sap," Trip replied, dredging up educational films from his childhood. "Which is the liquid running through trees that supplies them with water and nutrients. They boil it down to make it thicker."

Mal stared at him for a long moment. "It's _tree blood_?" he surmised. "Well, it _is_ quite like honey, then, isn't it?"

Trip sputtered. "Um, well, _no_ , I mean—honey isn't the blood of bears, Mal, I told you Pop was just kidding about that."

"I never kid," insisted a new voice, and they turned to see Pop walking in from the back porch wrapped in his bathrobe.

"Doin' your laps, Pop?" Trip asked with a fond grin.

"I was," he agreed. "Then I heard my name bein' taken in vain, so I thought I'd better investigate."

"Pop," Mal began excitedly, "did you know that maple syrup is tree blood?"

"Of course," Pop assured him. "Do you know what the blueberry syrup is?" Mal shook his head. "Blueberry blood. They mash up blueberries real good and stew 'em down, press the liquid off."

"My goodness," commented Mal.

"Yup, humans are famous throughout the galaxy for using the blood of other creatures in their condiments," Pop concluded.

"I thought it was only Klingons who did that," Mal observed. "How remarkable."

"Pop, you are _so_ not helping right now," Trip informed him.

"And you better not be dripping on my kitchen floor," his wife pointed out.

"I'm not, I'm not," he promised her. "Guess I'd better go up and change, though."

"Hand me some blueberry blood, please, Trip," Mal requested, and Trip sighed.

"Another mind corrupted by Pop," he remarked, shaking his head.

They managed to eat quietly for a few minutes. Trip finished his pancakes ahead of Mal and reached for the fruit bowl on the counter, considering his options. Apple, pear, grapes… Giving Mal a little smirk, he chose a banana and started to peel it.

Mal began to twitch a bit. "Ma! Ma, may _I_ have a banana, please?" Mal asked, watching Trip take large bites of his.

"Of course, baby."

Mal practically dropped his fork against the plate in his eagerness to seize upon a banana. "Are you sure you don't want me to prepare yours for you, Trip?" he asked anxiously.

The other man shook his head. "Nope. Doin' just fine on my own." At least, that was what Mal _thought_ he said, around the mouthful of banana.

"May I have a knife, please, Ma? Thank you." Ma leaned on the counter watching Mal, slightly bemused. The dark-haired man carefully scored the banana peel straight down with four cuts, then removed the four equal pieces from the entire banana and set them aside. The nubs at each end of the white flesh were eliminated, then Mal began stripping the banana of the tougher strings that lay along the vertical indentations. All of his discarded components were neatly gathered on Trip's empty plate. After approximately seven minutes of prep work—Trip had timed him before—the fruit was finally in a fit state to be consumed, according to Mal.

"Goodness, baby," Ma remarked. "Sure are particular, aren't you?"

"You should see what he does with an orange," Trip told her with a smirk.

 

"There now, I packed you boys some sandwiches, and I put some sodas in the cooler, too, and some fruit, and a few cookies…"

Trip peered into the rather large hamper waiting on the counter. "You know we're just goin' out on the lake for a few hours, right, not on an expedition across the desert."

"Well, I just don't want you to get hungry," Ma told him, still fluttering around the kitchen. "Now have you got your hat? Your sunscreen? You know your father always forgets his sunscreen. You're gonna wear a jacket over that, right? It might be chilly out on the lake this time of year."

Trip rolled his eyes. "Ma! You know, sometimes they even leave me _in charge of the ship_ on our missions. I _think_ I can handle goin' out on the lake with Pop."

"Is that the food you packed for Trip, Ma?" Mal inquired, strolling into the kitchen. He immediately went to the hamper and began to inventory it. "Are you certain this will be enough, Ma? They're going to be gone for several hours in the middle of a horrible wet lake, and, I don't know if you're aware of this, but Trip can eat _quite_ a lot sometimes…"

"Yes, thank you, Mal, Ma and I already discussed this," Trip pointed out.

"Well fine then." Mal closed the hamper lid and began to circle Trip, inspecting him. "You're going to wear another layer over that shirt, aren't you, Trip?" he prodded. "I don't think you'll be warm enough in just that. And did you put your sunscreen on? Remember how you forgot that one time, on the planet with the bear, and you got all pink and sore and cranky."

"It was not a bear, Mal," Trip corrected, feeling powerless to do anything else, especially when his mother smirked at him like that. "It was a chipmunk, okay? And _yes_ , I put sunscreen on. Honestly…"

"Fine," Mal decided, although he was clearly far from satisfied with Trip's precautionary measures. "I'm going out to check the boat now. I'll be back in a few minutes."

"Check the… Never mind," Trip decided. He waited until he'd heard the front door swing shut behind Mal and turned back to his mother, who was still smirking. "What?"

"Just glad to know you have someone to look after you, baby," she replied cheerfully.

"Yes, we wouldn't want me to have to look after _myself_ ," Trip muttered, but with mostly good humor. "Anyway… Thanks for takin' him today, Ma. Not too late to back out, if you want," he offered with a grin.

"Oh, nonsense," his mother told him. "Mal and I are gonna have a real good time today. You just enjoy yourself and don't worry about anything."

Trip wasn't sure how easy _that_ would be. "Well, you've got the list of foods he can't eat. And won't eat. And shouldn't eat… Any kind of tedious task you've got, just give him that to do and he'll be happy, especially if it involves cleanin' something. Oh, but never assume he knows how to do something, or even has any common sense about anything," Trip advised. "It's just safer that way. If he gets upset about anything you can usually bribe him with food. He's not real good in crowds but he's getting better… Oh, and if you can put him down for a nap in the afternoon, that would be real good 'cause he gets grouchy otherwise, but he doesn't always go for his nap quietly… I don't know, Ma," he said suddenly, "maybe I just better take him, he'll fuss the whole time but it might be better—"

"Charles Tucker, I have raised three children, I think I can handle Mal for one day," his mother reminded him with a chuckle.

"You raised three _Tucker_ children," Trip pointed out. "Mal is an _entirely_ different beast. He's even worse than Eddie when Eddie was little."

"I think we'll be fine," she assured him. "Now you get on out to the boat and make sure your father put on his sunscreen."

Trip hoisted the food cooler, gave his mother a kiss good-bye, grabbed a jacket, and made his way through the house and down the front steps. Their little dock was just down the road and through the trees a ways, a path Trip and his siblings had often tread for the purposes of fishing, boating, or just plain swimming in the lake—all activities he knew Mal would look upon with horror, not only for the association with open water but also for the questionable hygiene involved.

He grinned when he emerged from the trees and saw Mal lying on his stomach on the wooden dock, one arm wrapped tightly around a post, the other reaching out to gently rock the waiting motor boat. Pop stood patiently beside him, watching. Mal seemed to be giving the boat incrementally more forcefully pushes until he was finally able to surmise at what point it might overturn.

"This vehicle seems rather unsteady," he finally decided, climbing up to his knees. "And you haven't any overhead shelter or side safety bars. I don't see any auxiliary power systems in case your primary engine fails. What about weapons? Have you any—"

"Mal!" Trip interrupted, with affectionate exasperation. "We're not goin' into enemy territory. It's a boat. On the lake. That's it."

"I don't know…" Mal hedged. "It seems very primitive to me."

"That's the point, buddy."

"'Sides, we've got a bunch of those things you mentioned," Pop countered. He climbed into the boat and Mal had to turn away at the wobbling motion that, in his mind, threatened to flip the vehicle at any moment. "C'mere and look at this. Overhead shelter." He picked up a tarp that was piled in a corner. "Weapons." A fish-gutting knife. "And, auxiliary power systems." A pair of small oars tucked along the side. "Also could be weapons, come to think of it."

Trip grinned, pleased with his father's inventiveness. Mal looked even more distressed, however. He threw his arms around Trip and buried his face against his chest. "Oh, don't go, please, it's awful," he begged.

"Don't be such a drama queen," Trip chided him gently. He passed the cooler of food to Pop and disentangled himself from Mal. "Now listen here, I want you to be _real_ good for Ma. I mean _real_ good. No fussin', no throwin' a fit, no doin' weird things like jumpin' on the ceiling or hollerin' when you're out in public. You got it?"

Mal nodded solemnly. "I shall endeavor to be extremely well-behaved, Trip," he vowed.

"You better be," Trip warned him. "Don't think Ma's gonna be as soft on you as _I_ am if you act up." He grinned and gave Mal a parting hug. "Don't worry, buddy, me and Pop'll be back in just a few hours. We're not even going that far away."

"Alright," Mal finally allowed, though he was obviously not pleased with the arrangement. "I hope you have a good time. And don't get eaten by any gators."

"That's what the weapons are for," Pop reminded him with a grin.

Mal left before he had to watch Trip climb into the boat.

 

"Now relax your arm there. Lean back a bit more. You're gettin' rusty at this, son."

Charles Tucker III gave his father a look and cast the line into the murky lake water. For a moment he thought he had caught something right away, then he realized he had merely snagged the hook on some weeds. Disappointed, he began to untangle the line.

"Little farther out," Pop advised. "All in the wrist. Don't be so tense about it."

"I'm not tense," Trip asserted tensely, tugging on the stuck line.

"Have a little patience." Pop took the fishing rod from him and gently maneuvered the hook free, reeling it in with only a few lingering slimy strands of weeds. He left these for his son to remove. "Kinda surprised they let you work on delicate equipment," he commented with an affectionate smirk.

"Truth be told," Trip admitted wryly, "I was never really that fond of fishing."

"I know," Pop agreed. "Eddie was always the one who liked it best. Still does." Trip cast his line again; this time it landed in a suitable location and he sat back in the boat. "He gets up here nearly every weekend," Pop went on conversationally. "Wait'll you see that little niece of yours, she'll knock your socks off."

"I can't wait to see her," Trip answered genuinely. "And I'm real glad Eddie stayed so close. Lizzie, too."

Pop smirked. "Not that we see much of Miss Lizzie! Her social calendar is just so full, you know."

"She has to travel a lot for work," Trip reminded him, and Pop chuckled. "What?"

"You. Always gotta defend your little sister, no matter what the charge," Pop remarked.

Trip grinned. "Well that's what big brothers do, isn't it?"

"I guess so," Pop nodded, being a big brother himself. After a quiet moment he began, "Thought your stay in San Francisco for Starfleet training was the farthest from home one of my kids would ever live. Then Katie went to Ireland." Pop turned to give Trip a look. "And then you had to go and leave the planet!"

Trip smirked. "Yeah, I signed up for _Enterprise_ just to beat Katie in the long distance game. Anyway, what did you _think_ would happen when I joined up with Starfleet? At the very least I would be posted at the Lunar One colony or Jupiter Station."

"If you were bobbin' in place on some space station out there, least they'd give you regular leave every year," Pop pointed out, without ire. "Eh, you always had to go faster than anyone else," he added with a shrug. "Told you to walk, you built a pair of roller skates with rockets on them. Told you to ride a bike, you build your own car." Trip nodded fondly, thinking of his old, much-abused vehicle. "Told you to fly a ship, you build a Warp Five engine."

"Pop, I didn't really _build_ it, by myself that is," Trip protested mildly. "I just worked on it."

"Now you're goin' faster than any human has before," Pop continued, shaking his head. "And seein' things most of us can't even imagine."

"Ain't that the truth," sighed Trip.

"Your ma and I like to set out on the porch at night sometimes, look at the stars, the moon," Pop went on. "Always kinda stretched my mind a bit to think that Katie, halfway around the world, had the same moon to look at as we did. Still haven't gotten used to the idea that you aren't under that same moon at all."

"I wouldn't trade it for anything, Pop," Trip admitted honestly."I can't even tell you why, but it's the truth. Seein' a planet or a nebula first, bein' one of the first human beings another species has ever met—bein' challenged every day to come up with your own solutions, 'cause you can't just call home and ask for help… Right now there's nothing else I can imagine myself doing."

"I know it," Pop agreed. He stretched a bit, getting more comfortable. "But at the moment, I got you stuck out in the middle of this lake, goin' nowhere. So, just you start tellin' me what you been up to on that ship of yours. And," he added over Trip's protests of repetition, "I don't mean those nice little stories you told your ma and me last night. You just start with that alien you had to take back to his home planet, and go from there."

Trip sighed and leaned back in the boat, unable to escape.

 

"Now we'll just be a minute in here, I hope," Ma promised, leading the way into the hardware store. "Sometimes Jed makes things more complicated than they need to be, though."

Mal craned his neck to look up to the ceiling of the large warehouse, filled with shelves packed full of colorful objects that all but demanded he play with them. Which might have been why Ma refused to let go of his hand as they approached the counter. "Look, Ma, look at—ooh, they've got a—what's this, Ma—can I please—"

"Don't touch anything," Ma reminded him.

"Well, if it isn't Shady Tucker," a rotund man behind the counter greeted cheerfully. "How you been gettin' on?"

"Gettin' on," she replied with a shake of her head. "Don't know where the time goes anymore."

"I hear ya," the man agreed. "How's Chaz?"

"Just fine. He's out on the lake today with our oldest boy, Trip. Come to visit for the holidays." The pride in her voice was unmistakable.

"You don't say," the man replied with interest. "That's the spaceship one, isn't it?"

"Yes, indeed." Seeing the man glance at Mal, she continued, "This is his friend, Mal. He's helpin' me with some errands today."

"Well how do, Mal," the man said, holding out a meaty hand. Mal shook it nervously, having not understood most of what he and Ma had said to each other. Perhaps he should have asked Hoshi for a UT before he left the ship. "Jed Bonoraux, proprietor of this here establishment."

"Hello."

"Little shy," Ma explained. "Well listen here, 'proprietor,' I need a wall tile for my kitchen. Gotta get that cracked one replaced 'fore the holiday company comes over."

Jed nodded and started to move away from the counter. "Alrighty then. You still got that yellow kitchen?"

"Still?" Ma scoffed. "Only been fifteen years or so since we redid it. Won't be gettin' rid of all _that_ anytime soon."

"Too bad, too bad," Jed told her as they walked down the aisles. Mal could hardly stand being so close to all the intriguing gadgets but unable to investigate them. Perhaps Trip would bring him back here later? "Autumn Glaze, that's all the rage now," he assured Ma. "Got a big sale comin' up on Autumn Glaze tile." He stopped at a plastic-covered pallet and pulled out one small tile to show her.

Ma was not impressed. "Jed Bonoraux, why on Earth would I want my kitchen to be the same color as a rusted-out old transport, huh?" she asked. "Autumn Glaze, indeed. Why, that's not even a real color, just a couple of fancy words put together." She shook her head. "I'll stick with my Sunshine Yellow, thank you very much." Mal was starting to get antsy, standing in one place, surrounded by curious things, and not allowed to kneel even.

"Where is this tile anyway, in your kitchen?" Jed wanted to know.

"It's… back in one corner, behind the sugar and flour canisters," Ma told him. She gave Mal a look that stilled him instantly. "Why?"

"Well lands sake, woman, no one's gonna see it back _there_ ," Jed replied. "You could make it any color you want! Or even just leave it, replacin' the tile's gonna be more work probably." Mal started to drift towards the nearest display, something about _glue guns_ , which sounded incredibly interesting.

Ma gave the storekeeper a hard look. " _I'll_ know it's there," she shot back. "And I want it to be whole, and the right color. So what's the hold-up?" Ma tugged on Mal's arm and drew him back to her side.

Jed looked slightly sheepish. "Well, Sunshine Yellow isn't exactly the most popular color right now…" Ma tapped her foot impatiently. "I mean, I've got some in stock, but it's all the way up there." He indicated a collection of tile at the top of one of the shelves, some six meters above their heads. Ma gave him a look that said, _And?_ "And the young fella I got to run that new-fangled 'anti-gravity' lift is off today. He'll be back tomorrow…"

"Well I don't want it tomorrow, do I?" Ma told him in a steely tone. "Tomorrow Katie and them'll be here, and Eddie and Lizzie and all. I want to get it fixed _today_."

"Well," Jed decided thoughtfully, "guess I could get the old pneumatic lift out… No way am I tryin' that anti-gravity thing, I don't care _what_ it says…" He patted his ample stomach. "I got way too much for gravity to work on."

"I could get it, Ma," Mal offered eagerly.

"Well I don't think—"

Before she could stop him Mal bounded away, leapfrogging over the storage crates and shimmying up the shelves like a monkey, relieved to finally be moving around. Within moments he had dug out a bright yellow tile from the top shelf. "Is this the right one, Ma?"

"He's not from around here, is he?" Jed observed dryly.

"Not hardly," Ma agreed. She pitched her voice upwards. "I think so, baby. You come on down, now."

Mal hopped down easily, yellow tile in hand. He held it happily out to Ma but his face fell slightly when he saw her expression. "I did something _weird_ , didn't I? I'm sorry…"

"Oh, don't worry about it, baby," Ma assured him. "You were real helpful. Wasn't he, Jed?" She nudged the man forcefully.

"Absolutely," he agreed. "Hope it doesn't become the new trend, though, my insurance rates'll skyrocket if some nut falls and breaks their neck tryin' it."

"Oh, I never fall," Mal explained to him. "Unless I'm catching Trip, of course, but that's more like a _jump_ towards the ground."

"Handy, that one," Jed decided, leading them back to the counter. "Where are you from again, son?"

"He means _you_ , Mal," Ma prompted, when Mal looked confused about who he was referring to.

"Oh. I'm from Viridia, but I don't remember it," Mal replied. "Now I live on Trip's spaceship."

Jed nodded as if he thought that were about right. "One Sunshine Yellow tile," he announced, poking at the register at the counter. "Thumbprint right there, Professor."

"Thank you much, Jed," Ma told him cheerfully. "Merry Christmas!"

"Merry Christmas!"

 

The choices seemed endless. And time was running short. Ma had given him this vital task to complete, but—he just didn't have enough information. What would Trip do?

Mal looked around and noticed a fellow shopper a couple meters down the aisle. Trip would turn on the charm and get a local to assist him, he decided. Grabbing a variety of items for illustration, Mal approached the other person. To his delight, it appeared to be exactly the sort of person he was looking for.

"Excuse me," Mal began politely. "Are you a human child?"

The boy looked up from the brightly-colored data pad he was perusing as he stood by the cart. "Yeah."

"Perhaps you could assist me then," Mal went on. The boy looked him up and down warily. Mal quickly arrayed the items he'd brought before the child, trying to remember to smile every once in a while. "Ma told me to get some macaroni and cheese for the human children who are coming over tonight. But there's so many different kinds. Can you recommend one?"

The boy gave it some thought. "You definitely wanna get one of the shapes," he advised sagely.

Mal looked at him blankly. "Uh… like this?" He indicated one of the boxes.

The boy shook his head. "That's just the regular kind. That's boring."

"Oh," Mal replied, confused. "I thought they were sort of curved-tube-shaped."

"You want something like animal shapes," the boy clarified, seeing that he was dealing with a complete novice. "Or letters and numbers. Actually, I think the astro shapes are the best." He pointed to one of the boxes Mal held.

Mal examined that box more closely. "'Stars, comets, moons, rocket ships…'" he read from the back. "I'm not sure these depictions are scientifically accurate," he added dubiously.

The boy waved his concern off. "That doesn't matter. Once they're cooked you can't really tell what they're supposed to be anyway. It's just the idea that's cool."

Mal nodded slowly. "I think I shall get the astro shapes then. Thank you very much for your assistance, human child."

"No problem," the boy replied.

"Um—" What was it Ma had been saying to everyone? "Oh, have a Merry Christmas."

"Thanks," the boy told him. "I'm Jewish, though."

Mal stopped and frowned at him. "Does that mean you won't have a merry Christmas?" he inquired curiously.

"I don't have Christmas at all," the boy explained. "We have Hanukkah, actually. Which is better than Christmas, because we get eight days of presents instead of just one."

"Do you have Santa Claus?" Mal probed, his interest piqued.

"Nope. My parents get me presents. And my other relatives."

Mal thought this over. "So… you're not involved in the Santa conspiracy, then?" he asked carefully.

The boy shook his head with great superiority. "Nah. All that Santa stuff is just silly. But," he added with a put-upon sigh, "my mom told me not to tell the other kids Santa isn't real. Just that _I_ don't have him."

"That's very interesting," Mal decided. "I think Lt. Hess is Jewish. I shall have to ask her about this… Hanukkah?"

The boy nodded. "Who's Lt. Hess?"

"That's Trip's second-in-command."

"Who's Trip?"

"He's my best friend in the entire universe," Mal asserted. "We're staying with his family for Christmas. Pop owns a store downtown—Tucker's Refrigeration Units and More."

The boy nodded. "Oh yeah, I know where that is. My mom gets her hair done at the salon next door." He rolled his eyes to show what he thought of such activities.

Mal had no experiences with hair salons to draw on, so instead he merely nodded in commiseration. "Well, thank you again, human child. Have a Merry Hanukkah."

"Thanks," the boy replied. "Happy Holidays."

"Oh, that's much better, isn't it?" Mal decided. "Sort of covers everything. I'd best go find Ma now."

 

Pop nodded thoughtfully as Trip finished up his latest tale. "Yeah, glad you didn't tell your ma about this stuff, she'd be plenty worried."

"And you won't be?" Trip asked with a smile, trying to lighten the mood.

"Oh, sure I will be," Pop countered, poking at his fishing line. "But I gotta look at the big picture, I guess. Someone's gotta go out there, meet new people, see new things. The galaxy's too big to just stay on Earth these days." He squeezed Trip's shoulder affectionately. "I'm real proud that you're out there, son. We both are. We _all_ are."

"Thanks, Pop," Trip told him. "Don't know that I'll be givin' you grandkids any time soon, though…"

Pop waved that concern off. "You and Lizzie never could sit still long enough to get married, anyway. Not that I don't encourage it someday, of course," he added pointedly. "I'm lookin' forward to seein' Charles Tucker IV." Trip grinned. "But, doesn't seem like it'd be right to do all that right now—don't think Starfleet would let you bring a baby on board, and you wouldn't want the kid growin' up without a father 'cause you were gallivanting all over the galaxy."

"No, I s'pose not," Trip agreed.

"But anyway," Pop went on, after a quiet moment, "sounds like you've got a real good crew around you."

"I do."

"The news always makes those Starfleet types seem like reckless hotshots." Pop shook his head. "But Jon seems like he's got a good head on his shoulders. Always liked him."

"Yeah, me too," Trip replied.

"And you complain about that Vulcan woman a lot, but I bet she's good for you," Pop smirked.

"She probably is," Trip had to admit. "Keeps me honest."

"And as for Mal, well, I'm real glad he's there to look after you. Even if he bugs the h—l out of you sometimes."

"He's sure got me outta more jams than he's gotten me into," Trip agreed. "At least by this point. At first his average was _pretty_ low." He glanced at the chrono. "Well, we should probably be headin' back," he pointed out, surprised at his feeling of regret. Usually he only enjoyed being out on the lake fishing for a couple of hours, tops.

"Yeah, guess you're right," Pop nodded, reeling in his line. "We'll bring your ma a pile of fish to fry up, anyway."

 

Trip stopped in the doorway of the living room, a slow grin spreading over his face. Ma sat quietly at one end of the couch, reading from a data pad, with Mal stretched out on the rest of the couch, his head on her lap. Despite the pleasant temperature of the house he was snuggled under a blanket, apparently fast asleep. Her fingers threaded through his hair absently.

"Well, don't you two just look sweet," he commented cheerfully, and Ma looked up at him with a narrow gaze.

"Hush, you," she ordered quietly. "I just got him down for a nap a few minutes ago."

Trip crossed the living room carpet and bent to put a kiss on his mother's cheek. "He give you any trouble?" he murmured, keeping an eye on the still-snoozing Mal.

"No, he's been a little sweetheart all day," Ma assured him fondly. "But he was a little jumpy after his big day out, so I gave him a snack and a cup of cocoa and got him all relaxed." She turned her attention back to her son, giving him a sharp look. "Don't you be trackin' any swamp mud into my house, Charles Robert Tucker."

"I'm not, I'm not," he promised her. "Left my shoes by the back door. And look what we caught!" He held up the collection of fish, safely sealed in a transparent film. "Think we might have this for dinner, Ma?"

"Well, I suppose we might," she conceded. "Those look real nice, baby. Katie and them should be arriving around five, I think. Just in time for some fresh-caught fish," she added with a smile. "Now, what'd you do with your father?"

"Oh, he went 'round back to—" A sudden yowl startled them both and Trip jerked backwards, just as Mal managed to vault himself from the couch, ending up braced between two of the rafters directly overhead. The blanket he'd been wrapped in fluttered slowly back to the couch.

"Lands sakes, boy," Ma commented, staring up at him.

"Thought you said he was _relaxed_ ," Trip reminded his mother.

Mal was glaring at him from the ceiling. "Well how would _you_ like to wake up with a bunch of horrible dead fish in your face?!" he pouted.

"Hey, Pop and I just caught these," Trip protested. "They're not horrible, they're tasty."

Pop ambled into the living room at that moment, saw his wife and son staring upwards, and craned his neck up as well. "You see the comm control up there, Mal?" he asked conversationally.

Mal glanced around the rafters. "No."

Pop shrugged. "Looked everywhere else for it."

Trip rolled his eyes. "Would you get down from there?"

"Are the horrible dead fish going away?" Mal countered leadingly.

"Just have your father take those out back, _out of the house_ , and clean them," Ma suggested, and Trip handed the fish over to his father dutifully.

"And take a shower, too," Mal insisted, still peevish from his nap being interrupted.

"I was goin' to anyway," Trip shot back. He headed upstairs while Pop walked the fish back outside.

A few minutes later Trip returned, freshly showered and changed, to find Mal back on the couch, squirming restlessly. "I'm sorry, Ma," he said sadly. "I just can't get comfortable again."

"Oh, that's alright, baby," Ma assured him, ruffling his hair. "I'm goin' to the kitchen to see about supper. You just stay here with Trip, alright?"

Trip plopped down at the other end of the couch and Mal wormed his way around until his head was on Trip's lap. "I'm not offensive to your delicate nose anymore, am I?" Trip teased.

"You'll do," Mal allowed, and Trip smirked and scratched behind his ear.

"So what did you and Ma get up to today?"

"Oh, we did _so_ many exciting things," Mal reported. "We cleaned the house, and we baked pies and cookies—"

"Oh, goody," Trip exclaimed, starting to hop up and grab some right now.

"Ma said no one can have some until Katie and them arrive," Mal corrected a bit smugly. "'Them' are Katie's husband and their three children, you know."

"Yes, I know. What kind did you guys bake?"

"Oh, _so many_ tasty, yummy kinds," Mal taunted him. " _I_ got to try _all_ the cookies, for quality assurance purposes of course."

"Like you'd send any back," Trip countered.

Mal ignored that remark. "We made apple pie and cherry pie and orange vegetable pie and red stick vegetable pie with strawberries and—"

"What? Vegetables?" Trip interrupted. Then it clicked. "Ohhhh, you mean pumpkin pie? Or sweet potato pie? But what's that 'red stick' thing?"

"Oh, I can't remember the name," Mal replied off-hand. "It was a red stick vegetable, somewhat like celery but, as I said, red, and we mixed it with strawberries. Ma said, the red stick vegetable was _poisonous_ in the parts that weren't red," he added worriedly. "We had a very long discussion about whether it was really safe for you to consume, but Ma seemed to think it was."

"You mean _rhubarb_ ," Trip finally realized. "Yeah, we ate that all the time when I was a kid."

"That's what Ma said," Mal nodded. "She also showed me a number of recipes involving this vegetable, along with safety information about its preparation. I believe it will be safe for you to consume."

"Well, thanks for your stamp of approval," Trip told him wryly, making a mental note to ask his mother just how long this reassurance had taken. Then he thought again and decided no, he didn't really want to know.

Suddenly Mal giggled. "And we made cookies, and one of the cookies had _such_ a funny name!"

"What was it?" Trip asked. Mal tried to reply but giggled again instead. Trip smiled though he had no clue what cookie Mal could be referring to. "Um… chocolate chip? Oatmeal raisin?"

Mal shook his head, chortling. "No, it was—" He broke off again, unable to contain himself.

Trip chuckled in response even as he tried to come up with more cookie names. "Uh—sugar cookies? How about those ones with the chocolate drop in the middle?"

"No, no, they were—they were—"

"I'm about outta names here, buddy," Trip warned. "Uh—crinkles? Did they have fruit in them? Or chocolate?"

"They were—they were—" Finally Mal took a breath and gasped out, " _Snickerdoodles!_ " At the mention of the word he collapsed back on the couch, and Trip's lap, in a fit of giggles.

"Snickerdoodles, huh?" Trip repeated with a grin. "You think that's a funny word?" Mal nodded. "Snickerdoodle, snickerdoodle, snickerdoodle—"

"Boys!" Ma called from the kitchen, hearing Mal's howls of laughter. "You're not gettin' rowdy in there, are you?"

"No, Ma!" Trip and Mal chorused innocently. Prudently Trip encouraged them both to quiet down, unwilling to distract Ma when she was making dinner.

"Oh, and we went into _town_ ," Mal continued after a few minutes. "Everything was all decorated for Christmas, and there were so _many_ people."

"So what'd you do in town?" Trip encouraged.

"We went to the _hardware store_ and the _grocery store_ —and did you know that at the grocery store, they have something called the _produce section_?" Trip grinned at Mal's excitement. "It's just _full_ of fresh fruit, all different kinds, in little bins. It was marvelous."

"Then you got to come home and have a snack, huh?"

"Mmm, yes, we had apples and cheddar, and hot cocoa," Mal informed him. "But no milk in the cocoa, only water."

"Well that's good," Trip replied. "I wouldn't want you tipsy when Katie gets here. Her husband teaches at a divinity college in Killarney—that's in Ireland. Do you remember where Ireland is?"

Mal nodded against Trip's leg. "What's a divinity college?"

"That's a school where they teach people about religion," Trip explained. "And Katie works at a big ol' Catholic church. That's, um, a kind of church," he added, seeing the question on Mal's face. "Which is a place where people go to do religious stuff."

"Are there churches on _Enterprise_?" Mal asked suddenly.

"Well, they're smaller than most churches on Earth, but yeah, kinda," Trip told him. "Anyway, Katie and Ian tend to the conservative side… Wouldn't want them to think you were a drunk or anything."

 

Charles Tucker II and his two sons had once made Mrs. Tucker two beautiful curio shelves, by hand, for the occasion of a milestone birthday. Unfortunately, despite the fact that the patriarch was generally a handy fellow who owned an appliance store and one son would grow up to be an engineer, the cabinets when completed turned out to be approximately eight centimeters too wide to fit into their intended spots on either side of the couch in the parlor. Mrs. Tucker was the kind of woman to put more stock in intentions than outcomes, however, and the shelves were indeed displayed in the parlor, with the couch in front of them instead of in between. The couch didn't cover up much of the new furniture, as it turned out, and from a certain distance one would never guess anything was amiss. The forty-six centimeter gap between the couch and the wall was difficult to overlook upon closer inspection, however, and it was here than many miscellaneous objects and even on occasion people were stored, hidden, or lost. So it was really no surprise when, upon hearing the excited shouts indicating that Katie Tucker McCaffrey had arrived with her brood, the gap behind the couch was where Mal ran as everyone else was heading for the front door.

The first thing he heard was barking—not the deep, baying woof of Blue the coon hound but high-pitched, overly energized yips, like a pack of rats whose tails had been stepped on. Mal quickly checked the edges of the gap to make certain nothing could squeeze through and find him.

One McCaffrey child—with the sort of extrasensory perception possessed by most defiantly shy children—wriggled away from the group of talkative, hugging adults and found herself a quiet nook where she could decompress after spending a very long time in a transport with two parents, two siblings, and two dogs. Unfortunately, she discovered that the hiding place she had chosen already had an occupant.

"Who are _you_?" Emmaline asked, when she had recovered from her shock.

"I'm Mal. Who are _you_?"

"Emmaline."

"Oh. Are you one of Trip's nieces?" Mal asked pleasantly from his end of the gap.

"I guess so." Emmaline paused to think a moment, her nine-year-old mind struggling with the analysis. "Are you Uncle Trip's boyfriend, then?"

"No," Mal corrected her. "I'm his companion."

"Oh."

"What's all that barking, anyway?" Mal went on after a long moment of silence between them.

"That's our dogs," Emmaline explained knowledgeably. "They bark _all_ the time. It's really quite dreadful."

"I don't like barking very much myself," Mal agreed.

They both fell silent as they heard voices—human this time—approaching. "She's just being shy again," said a slightly exasperated woman. "Emmaline! Come out here!"

"That's okay, Mal's kinda shy too sometimes," Trip told her. Mal could feel that Trip wanted him to appear even before he called his name. "Mal! Come on and meet some folks!"

"I'd better go," Mal whispered to Emmaline. She nodded her understanding. She was willing to try her mother's patience a bit longer.

Not having much room to maneuver, Mal squirmed out of his hiding place, climbed over the couch, and started to present himself to Trip in the hallway. Unfortunately, the two McCaffrey Westies—with the extrasensory perception often possessed by creatures of the yipping variety—quickly divined who in the house would least welcome their attentions and headed straight for him.

Trip was alerted to Mal's whereabouts by a desperate cry for help. "Trip! They're going to get me! Make them stop!"

"Abiasaph, get down! Stop it, Hazargaddah!" Emmaline commanded firmly, popping up from behind the couch Mal was curled up on defensively. The two little white balls of fluff ceased barking momentarily and took their paws off the couch, though they continued to pace in front of it impatiently. "It's okay, Mal," Emmaline assured him, patting his shoulder. "They won't bite. They just want to lick you."

"Oh, how horrible," Mal replied.

"Well there you two are," Trip grinned. "Already gettin' acquainted, I see."

"Emmaline told the dogs to leave me alone," Mal pointed out. " _You_ seem to have been busy."

"Oh, don't get all fussy now," Trip said, ruffling Mal's hair fondly. "We're gonna have dinner soon." He turned to Emmaline, who was still standing behind the couch regarding him cautiously. "Well, come on out of there, sweetie." He helped her climb over the couch (and Mal) and dropped down to one knee to better look her in the eye. "I bet you don't even remember me," he teased with a grin.

Emmaline frowned at the test. "You're Uncle Trip, Mummy's brother who lives on a spaceship." Her confidence faltered at the last moment. "Aren't you?"

"Well that is exactly right, sweetie," Trip told her. "Guess you've already met Mal," he added dryly, looking at the man still curled on the couch, glaring at the little dogs who watched his every move.

"Yes. He doesn't like barking, either," Emmaline stated.

Trip stood and reached a hand towards Emmaline, who took it. "Let's go join the others, alright? Mal?" The other hand Trip held out was being ignored.

"But what if the dogs get me?" Mal worried.

"If you just ignore them, they usually go away," Emmaline advised. "After a while."

"You see?" Trip told him. "Now come on."

With extreme reluctance, Mal started to move. The little dogs began to get excited all over again. Trip gestured to Mal to hurry up and get it over with, and Mal put a foot down on the carpet. The little dogs swarmed it and Mal whined.

"Oh, get up," Trip ordered with exasperation, grabbing Mal's hand. The dark-haired man did a little dance trying to avoid the dogs, who found it playful and yipped with joy. Emmaline giggled. "Cut it out," Trip told him. "Quit payin' attention to them and they'll leave you alone."

"I somehow doubt that," Mal decided.

"Abiasaph! Hazargaddah!" The little dogs turned their attention to the new voice calling them, new to Mal at least, and they trotted off to the affectionate hands of a sandy-haired man crouching on the carpet.

"Ian, this is Mal," Trip introduced, trying to get everyone involved facing the right away at the same time. "And this is my sister, Katie."

Katie turned from directing her father with the baggage and correcting her son. She was all brisk efficiency, blond hair pulled tightly back without a strand out of place, and her slightly dressy outfit was completely unwrinkled despite the hours of travel. Katie was the kind of person people wanted on their committees—though not necessarily at their dinner parties. She cleared her throat and tapped her husband on the shoulder, willing him to stand up properly, and Ian turned into a tall, gangly man with a friendly but slightly distant look about him. He seemed like the sort of man who wanted a strong woman for a wife, so he could think about abstract concepts in biblical scholarship instead of the power bill, yet always have electricity.

"Hello, Mal," Katie greeted, giving him a quick once-over. "We've heard so much about you. Oh, _there_ you are, Emmaline," she added pointedly.

Mal tried to drop to his knees beside Trip, his preferred stance in a group, but Trip grabbed the back of his shirt to keep him up, smiling tightly. If there was _one_ person in the whole family Trip didn't need Mal acting too weird in front of, it was his older sister.

"Hello," Mal finally mumbled. Katie's expression indicated she had been expecting something a little… _more_.

Emmaline swung the hand that held Trip's back and forth absently. "Mal was behind the couch, Mum," she reported matter-of-factly. "He doesn't like the dogs very much."

"Oh," Katie remarked.

"Uh, he's not very used to dogs, is all," Trip clarified quickly, hopefully before Katie could take offense. "Mal, this is my nephew, Connery."

"Hullo," said the chubby-cheeked twelve-year-old, after his mother prompted him.

"Couple years ago, Connery's class sent drawings they'd made to _Enterprise_ ," Trip added proudly. "And the whole Bridge crew made a recording to send back."

"Oh yes, Trip keeps your drawing in our quarters," Mal informed the boy, who squirmed a bit self-consciously.

"We just watched that video right before we left, didn't we," Katie reminded her children. "It's so nice to have for them, so they can see you, Trip," she added, and he felt the sting in her words, intentional or not.

"Yeah, that's the one where Uncle Trip got the question about _poo_ ," Connery snickered, and Emmaline joined in his giggles. Trip rolled his eyes and Katie gave them chastising looks.

" _Poo_ ," Mal repeated. "That's a funny word. What's _poo_?"

"And here's the youngest one," Trip redirected quickly as Ma appeared from the direction of the hall bathroom, holding the hand of a little girl. A little girl with sparkly purple wings jutting out from her back. "Annabel, this is my friend, Mal."

Mal looked down at her. "What species are you?" he asked in what was intended as a polite tone.

"I'm a fairy," she answered brightly.

Katie laughed nervously. "We're going through an imaginative phase right now," she explained.

Mal seemed fascinated. "What planet are you from?" he inquired of the little girl.

"Earth," she told him. "What planet are _you_ from?"

"Viridia," Mal replied. "But I don't remember ever being there."

"Oh yeah, you're an _alien_ and stuff, right?" Connery remarked. "That's cool."

"Thank you," Mal responded.

"Well, let's not stand around gabbin' when we could be eatin'," Pop insisted as he reappeared in the hallway. The group began to lumber towards the dining room, the little dogs following eagerly.

Mal tugged on Trip's arm. "How am I going to eat with the dogs around?" he whispered worriedly.

"Well you could always sit at the table," Trip shot back. He felt another tug, this time lower, and looked down to see Annabel gazing up at him.

"You can carry me if you like," she allowed generously.

"Annabel," her mother warned.

Trip grinned at the girl. "Well how did you know, that's exactly what I wanted to do," he told her, scooping her up.

"Watch out for her wings," Mal reminded him.

"It's part of my fairy powers," Annabel assured her uncle.

The dining room table had been expanded and set with nine places instead of the four from the night before. Mal began to nibble his lower lip nervously as the dogs yipped and cavorted around the table and chair legs. He could eat at the table. He really could. As long as Trip didn't make him sit flat on the seat. He said children didn't have to do that. Maybe it would be okay if there were _actual_ children present, who also weren't sitting flat? Hesitantly he reached for the chair beside where he thought Trip would sit.

"Now you two just get out of here," Ma ordered, sweeping towards the barking Westies. "I will not have dogs in my dining room while we're tryin' to eat. Go on, out to the garage with you! You, too, Blue, come on!"

Mal watched the dogs leave hopefully. Well, at least now he could sit on the floor in peace. Other diners were beginning to claim their seats and Mal quietly pulled the chair next to Trip's away from the table. Far away. Then, trying not to draw attention to himself, he transferred his place setting to the floor, placemat and all. Satisfied with his preparations, he joined Trip in helping Ma and Pop set food out on the table.

"Why aren't we doing the procedure where we set all the plates on the table, then bring them back into the kitchen?" he inquired of Trip.

The other man shrugged and handed him a bowl of cooked carrots. "I don't know. 'Cause there's more people, I guess, who don't all want the same thing."

"But we didn't all eat the same thing last night," Mal pointed out.

Since he was still standing there, Trip handed him the bowl of salad as well. "Well, there's a lot more choices tonight," he tried. "More possible combinations. And if we have it all right on the table, people can just choose what they want to eat, and what they don't." Mal decided this made sense and was about to return to the dining room when Trip summoned him back. "Oh. Very important thing. This probably won't be a problem for you, but—you have to at least _try_ everything."

"What?" Mal stared at him in confusion.

"I mean, unless you're allergic to it, of course, or you absolutely _know_ you hate it," Trip specified. "But it's rude to just refuse to try something otherwise."

"But… then… everyone _would_ have the same thing on their plates, nearly," Mal figured. "Wouldn't they?"

Trip paused partway through dumping hot rolls into a basket. "Um… I guess so," he decided. "That's just the way we do it, I guess. Go on and get those set out."

Mal pushed his way into the dining room, still perplexed by human eating habits. Or maybe it was just those of Tuckers. He set the salad and carrots down at one end of the table and was about to go back in the kitchen when he noticed Annabel examining his place setting curiously.

"Mummy, there's a plate on the floor here, see?" She started to reach for it.

"What? Did you knock it off?" her mother asked distractedly, as she tried to make sure her other children were clean enough to eat. "Did it break?"

"Um, that's mine, actually," Mal said in a small voice, hoping the little girl didn't actually _touch_ anything he was going to eat from. Because, Trip's family or not, you just never knew, and he wasn't certain what kind of personal hygiene standards fairies kept to.

"Why's it on the floor?" Annabel queried.

"Annabel, come get in your seat now," her mother ordered.

"Um, well, that's where I'm going to sit."

That drew people's attentions, and Mal felt like trying to blend into the wallpaper. Of course at that moment Trip walked in with the rolls and found everyone silent and staring, which embarrassed Mal even more.

"Buddy, go help Ma with the chicken, would you?" he directed, and Mal fled eagerly. "Alright, what'd he do?" he asked the assembled group.

"He said he was goin' to sit on the floor to eat!" Annabel supplied helpfully.

"I'm sure he was just joking," Katie told her, looking straight at her brother.

Who took even _more_ pleasure in correcting her. "Nope, he's really gonna sit on the floor."

"And why would he do that?" Katie questioned.

Trip shrugged—don't know, don't care. Katie hated it when he didn't appear to care about the things _she_ thought were important. "That's just what he does."

"Can _I_ sit on the floor?" Emmaline requested. It seemed like a good way to keep people from looking at her.

"Yeah, I want to sit on the floor, too!" seconded Connery. There was definitely greater potential for mischief-making down there.

" _I_ want to sit on the floor!" added Annabel, because it looked like her older siblings might get to.

"No one is sitting on the floor," Katie declared. "Except Mal, I guess."

"But why not—"

Trip swept back into the kitchen smugly, leaving his sister to deal with a chorus of whines. Mal was sitting glumly in a corner, holding a basket full of odds and ends that he'd displaced. "Oh, come on now," Trip told him, patting his shoulder. "Don't be upset. Just caught them by surprise, is all. All the kids are clamorin' to sit on the floor now, too." Mal looked unconvinced. Trip crouched down to better look him in the eye. "Come on, buddy. If you don't wanna eat with us anymore that's fine, but I think you'll be alright. Looks like you're sittin' between me and Pop anyway, and that's alright, isn't it?"

"I guess," Mal decided reluctantly.

Trip stood. "Good. Now come on. I think Ma and Pop are just about ready."

Trip and Mal emerged from the kitchen just as Pop was—Trip feared—explaining to his grandchildren _why_ Mal was going to be sitting on the floor. Something about watching for indications that the table was about to collapse, he thought. "Pop," Trip put in chidingly, just for good measure. Trip felt he was never going to live down the Thanksgiving when he'd removed all the fastenings from the dining room table, which had held together perfectly well until Pop had set the turkey on it.

They took their places with Mal on the floor. He was somewhat comforted to see that Annabel, at least, was indeed kneeling in her chair.

"Are you going to say grace, Pop, or should Ian do it?" Katie asked, and several pairs of eyes turned towards Pop pleadingly. Ian was a great guy, Trip knew. But to be honest he would rather the food _not_ be cold by the time an 'Amen' had finally been said.

"Oh, I'll just do it," Pop decided, much to the relief of several people.

Katie did not appear to be one of them. "As long as you don't just say the word 'grace' again," she remarked, trying to pretend she was joking.

"I've got a few that rhyme, that suit ya?" Pop asked mischievously. Her look said _no_.

People began to join hands around the table. "Come up here a bit more, Mal, so I can reach you," Pop instructed.

"What's going on?" Mal asked Trip. "What are we—"

_Hush! I'll explain later. Just hold hands and be quiet and still, okay?_

Mal held hands and tried to be quiet and still while Pop talked. He liked holding hands with Trip. He liked holding hands with Pop, too—his hands were kind of like Trip's, strong and callused from working with machines. But why did everyone have their eyes closed? Weren't they going to eat the delicious food just sitting there on the table? And who was Pop talking to?

After not too long Pop came to the end and everyone said something in unison. The McCaffreys made a strange gesture over their faces and chests. "Wh—"

_Later!_

Conversation resumed at the table and the bowls and platters of food began to go around. Mal slipped his plate up on the table next to Trip's and peered over the edge eagerly, waiting to see what he'd be given. He was certain everything Ma and Pop had made would be fine, except for the fish of course, but Katie had brought a number of 'interesting' items over in stasis and Mal finally understood what Trip had been talking about.

"What's that?" he whispered fearfully to Trip, seeing a small brownish lump appear on his plate next to the perfectly respectable green beans and mashed potatoes.

"Mushroom surprise," Trip replied, sounding almost cheerful. Mentally he added, _Don't ask what the surprise is._ Mal didn't.

"Dada," Annabel asked, rocking on her elbows on the table, "do people on other planets have Jesus?"

"Hmm." Ian appeared thoughtful. "I don't know. But I would be very interested in finding out. Why don't you ask your Uncle Trip, then?"

Annabel turned expectantly to the man seated next to her. "Um… I've not heard anyone mention Him," he replied carefully. "But we usually don't get into discussions like that on the first meeting."

Annabel was nothing if not persistent in her pursuit of knowledge. "Mal's from another planet, aren't you, Mal? Do _you_ know about Jesus?"

"Oh yes," Mal assured her confidently. "But only because Trip talks about him so much."

This comment drew a few surprised looks—including one from Trip himself. "He does?" someone prodded. Trip thought it was Katie.

"Absolutely," Mal confirmed. "He's always saying, 'J---s, Mal, where have you been?' and 'J---s C----t, what's wrong with the engine?' That's the fellow whose middle name starts with an H, right? Or sometimes an F—"

He finally broke off as the initial surprise of the listeners turned into snickers from some, and he realized belatedly that Trip was sending out waves of _Shut up NOW!_ Not to mention flushing bright pink. Mal immediately shrank to the floor by Trip's feet.

"Well, since we're in that vein and all, how's your job goin', Ian?" Ma segued, deflecting the conversation to the other end of the table. Trip was eternally grateful.

_C'mere and take your plate._

Mal tried to curl up under the table. "Not hungry," he muttered, with great embarrassment.

_Next time you start to tell a story, maybe you could check with me first?_

Mal burrowed into his legs. "I'm sorry."

_Well, h—l, I been embarrassed worse around my family than that_ , Trip conceded. _Now come on out and eat something._

Slowly Mal slunk from his hiding place and Trip handed him the plate of food. _But just you be glad I let the green gelatin salad with lettuce go by._ Mal made a slightly strangled noise in the back of his throat.

Across the table Connery stretched up to see Mal, then ducked his head underneath, even as his mother chided him to sit still. "So, Mal, do you have any cool alien powers?"

This time Mal glanced at Trip before answering, though the other man only shrugged unhelpfully. "Um, I'm not sure… What did you have in mind?"

"Oh, like shooting laser beams from your eyes," Connery suggested.

"Or turning invisible," added Emmaline.

"Or flying," said Annabel.

Mal looked rather disappointed in himself. "Oh. No, sorry, I guess not, then."

Trip patted his head comfortingly. "Well, he can't fly, but he's a real good jumper and climber," he revealed proudly.

"D'you want to see me jump up to the ceiling?" Mal offered eagerly.

"Yeah!"

"Sure!"

"Okay!"

Trip grabbed his shoulder to hold Mal down. "Maybe _after_ dinner."

           

"Now where did Mal get to?" Ma asked as she piled the last few dishes by the sink. "He's about the only person I've ever seen who gets excited about doin' dishes…"

Trip leaned back from the sink, peering out the window into the backyard. "He's outside playin' with the kids, looks like." All four of them were holding hands and attempting to jump in unison—Trip assumed there was some kind of larger purpose behind it. Perhaps they were trying to achieve lift-off?

"Mal's an… interesting guy," Katie commented, drying a pan beside Trip.

He decided against thinking too much about what she meant by that. "Yeah… Did you tell the kids he was my boyfriend, by the way?"

Katie stiffened. "No, I certainly didn't."

Great. There was no way he could ask his older sister a simple question without offending her. Which in itself offended Trip. "Well, one of them said something to him about it."

"So naturally you think _I_ told them that," she surmised.

T'Pol would have said his question was only logical, but Trip doubted that would fly among humans. "Anyway, just so you know," he clarified, "he's not anything of that nature."

For a few minutes they were both quiet, just washing and drying the pots and pans. Trip liked his older sister at times like this. When she was quiet. He would've thought she preferred the same—him being quiet—but before too long Katie always had to go and—

"It's just a little strange, the way he sits on the floor," she remarked.

"He _is_ strange," Trip replied, gritting his teeth slightly. "He's an alien."

Katie's expression seemed to indicate that was no excuse. "Well, I just don't know what kind of message it's sending the kids."

Trip rolled his eyes in the particularly dramatic way he knew she hated. "How about, there's different kinds of people in the universe, and it's okay if they aren't exactly like us?"

"I don't have a problem with aliens," Katie pointed out defensively.

"I didn't say you did," Trip shot back, moderating his tone only because Ma stuck her head in the kitchen at that moment, clearly just to check on them.

"The children's doctor is a Vulcan, you know," Katie continued while Trip tried to concentrate on the washing. "And she's very… She's very professional." Trip had no idea why a Vulcan would want to be a pediatrician on Earth. He made a mental note to ask T'Pol about this when they were back on the ship. "Mal's just a little… subservient, that's all."

"Shouldn't think that would bother you," Trip muttered under his breath.

Katie froze. "What was that?"

She spoke just as Ma walked in again, to put some leftovers away in the cold box. "Trip," Ma warned, as he opened his mouth to release an angry retort. He swallowed it, with effort, and turned back to his chore. They were both silent until Ma left the room again.

"Speaking of subservient…" Katie remarked with a touch of smugness.

Trip dropped the pan he was washing and faced her. "I _mean_ , I think you'd like it if _you_ got to sit at the table, and everyone else was on the floor. And do _not_ talk about my mother."

Sensing danger Katie immediately backed down and tried to pretend she had no idea why he was irritated. "I wasn't," she insisted. "For goodness' sake, Trip, I was just—"

They were interrupted again, this time by Ian. "The kids are out back, climbing a tree," he informed her in an off-hand way. "Is that okay?"

Trip had a feeling that the answer might have been 'yes' if she weren't mad at him, and if she didn't know Mal was playing with them. Instead it became an emphatic "No!" and a reason to dramatically toss her dishtowel aside and march outside. Trip sighed and decided he'd better follow, just in case.

The old cottonwood trees in the backyard had stood firmly through many years of Tucker children scrambling all over them, although even at their most springy and fearless no child was a match for Mal when it came to climbing. "This is fun," he said conversationally to his fellow climbers. "I like climbing trees. Trip lets me climb trees on shore leave sometimes."

"What's shore leave?" Emmaline asked, hoisting herself up another level.

"It's when you get a vacation from being on a ship," her brother replied knowledgeably.

"That's right," Mal agreed. "Sometimes we go to a planet specifically for shore leave. Other times we just go outside on a nice planet while other people in the crew are—"

"Connery! Emmaline! Annabel! Get out of that tree! What do you think you're doing, in your good clothes—"

Annabel turned abruptly at her mother's shout and lost her grip on the loose bark. Fortunately Mal was easily able to catch her, with only a minimum of contortion and squealing. "Oh, I'm sorry," he told her immediately. "Shall I let you go? I forgot that you could fly."

"She can't really fly," Connery scoffed from below them.

"I'm still learning," Annabel corrected primly. Feeling confident in Mal's hands she gave a few experimental arm flaps.

"GET DOWN FROM THERE!" Katie demanded, now standing under the tree and glaring up at them. "Do you want to give me a heart attack? What if you had fallen and broken your neck?" Emmaline and Connery exchanged eye-rolls as they let themselves back down. They had heard this speech before. Katie gathered them to her as if they had been lost somewhere for hours. "Well?" she insisted, giving the remaining tree-climbers a pointed look. "You just bring her down here right now!"

"His name is _Mal_ ," Trip snapped. "And I don't know what you're gettin' so worked up about, we used to climb these trees all the time."

"I will thank you to keep your opinions to yourself, especially as you don't even _have_ children," Katie shot back at him. Trip gave her a look that clearly said, _What the h—l does that have to do with anything?_ "Annabel! Get down here!"

"I guess we'd better get down," Mal decided reluctantly.

"Yeah, she'll just yell more," Annabel agreed.

"Well, hang on," Mal advised, pulling her against his chest. The girl gripped his arm firmly and Mal executed a fairly impressive leap from the tree, landing lightly at the foot. He set Annabel down in front of her mother with a satisfied smile. "There you go!" Annabel took a bow.

"Cool!" Connery exclaimed. "I wanna do that!"

"Oh I don't think so," his mother replied, grabbing Annabel's hand. "We're going inside now."

Mal's expression slowly fell as he watched them leave. "Did I do something wrong, Trip?"

"No, buddy, you're fine," Trip assured him. "She's just… bein' Katie. Come on, let's go in."

 

"Can we get in the pool now, Mum?"

Mal glanced up from where he sat at Trip's feet, interest piqued.

"You _promised_ we could play in the pool!"

Katie frowned at the children. "Has it been half an hour since you've eaten?" Ma gave Trip a pointed look as if to say, _See, it's not just me! It's a mom thing!_

"Yes, Mum!" little voices chorused.

"Well, in that case," Katie allowed, "you may _ask_ your Grandma Tucker if you can use the pool."

Immediately the children surged to the other side of the room. "Please, Grandma, please can we use the pool now?"

"Well of course you can," Ma laughed. "Let me just warm it up first."

"Run upstairs and get changed," Katie directed, and the children for once hurried to obey.

Emmaline stopped beside Mal. "Will you come play in the pool with us, Mal?"

"I—er—well—um," Mal stammered nervously. "How, precisely, would you play?"

Emmaline looked at him quizzically. "Oh, you know, we'd muck about in the water, and fetch things from the bottom of the pool, and jump in to see who can make the biggest splash, and that sort of thing."

Mal became increasingly pale during her explanation and looked up to Trip for guidance. The other man petted his hair soothingly and told Emmaline, "Sorry, sweetie, Mal's not too fond of the water."

"But come on, Mal, it will be fun," the little girl insisted, tugging on her new friend's hand.

"Emmaline, don't pester him about it," Katie ordered.

"Maybe your Uncle Trip would play in the pool with you," Ma suggested with a smile.

"Well I'd sure like to, sweetie," Trip put in. "Think there'll be room for me?"

Emmaline blinked at him shyly. "I-I think so. It's a big pool."

Trip laughed. "Well alright then!"

Emmaline escaped the spotlight to get changed while Katie stood and stretched. "A dip in the pool would be nice, after being in that transport all afternoon," she commented. "Don't you think so, Ian? Ian?"

Her husband looked up from the data pad he was engrossed in. "What? Oh yes. Very nice."

"Would you like the hot tub, too, dear?" Ma offered, poking at the controls.

Mal immediately turned to Trip, tugging on his leg.

"Yes, thank you, Shady," Katie replied politely. "I'll just go get my suit… Ian? Are you coming?"

"What? Oh, of course, love."

Mal had been pulling harder on Trip's leg and finally hopped up to his knees as Katie and Ian left, giving Trip a full-body push. "Yes?" Trip asked innocently. "Did you want something?"

"Trii-iip! The hot tub!"

"Well what about it, buddy?"

"They're going to use it!"

Trip ruffled his hair. "Well that's what it's there for, buddy. They won't wear it out."

"But—how can _I_ use it, if other people are there?" Mal persisted, distressed. "If they're being noisy, and _splashing_ —"

"Gotta learn to share, darlin'," Trip reminded him. Mal did not looked pleased about this. "Tell you what—later tonight, after the kids have gone to sleep, we'll go to the hot tub, okay?"

"Okay," agreed Mal. "Are you going to play in the pool with the children now? Should I stand guard in case you need assistance?"

Trip patted his shoulder. "I think I'll be okay, buddy."

"Why don't you stay here and keep me company, Mal?" Ma suggested, patting the couch beside her.

"There you go," Trip pointed out. He stood, weaving around Mal. "I better go change."

"Where'd everyone go?" Pop asked, appearing a moment later to a nearly-empty room.

"Out to the pool," his wife replied absently. She was digging for something in the basket beside the couch. "Now come on up here, Mal, I think I've got something you'd like to see."

Mal hopped up on the couch and peered at the data pad she'd retrieved. "That's a funny-looking human child. Look how his ears stick out—" He drew in a sharp breath. "Is that _Trip_?!"

"Ooh, are you gettin' out the baby pictures?" Pop asked eagerly. "Be sure and show him all the embarrassing ones we saved for Trip's _special_ friends," he added mischievously.

"Oh, you get on out to the pool and play with your grandchildren," Ma told him. "I'm gonna narrate these _nicely_ for Mal." Mal bounced excitedly beside her.

 

A fake fire flickering cozily in the fireplace with a large dog snoozing peacefully beside it, old kids' Christmas specials playing on the comm screen, and a bunch of kids (including one slightly larger than the rest) lying on the floor watching said specials with rapt attention… What more could one ask for? Trip thought pleasantly.

Well, maybe some kind of tranquilizer darts for the two Westies, but that was about it.

"Abiasaph, I have told you before to _please_ stop trying to eat my fancy party mix," Mal explained earnestly to the fluffy white dog trying to stick his nose into Mal's bowl. "I think it's very rude of you to persist when I've asked you to stop."

"He doesn't know what you're saying, Mal," Connery explained, pushing the dog away. "Plus, they're kind of dumb."

"Connery," warned his mother from her chair.

"But Porthos goes away when I tell him to," Mal protested.

"That's because Porthos has a short attention span," Trip explained from the couch behind Mal. He whistled softly and Abiasaph scampered up into his lap. The little white dog nuzzled at his more sedate companion, Hazargaddah, who sat on Ian's lap in the middle of the couch. Trip, as a kindred spirit, sensed that the livelier dog was trying to incite some dual-participant mischief and kept him firmly in place when he tried to jump down again.

"Hey, you're supposed to _share_ that, you know!" Emmaline complained, snatching the main bowl of fancy party mix away from her brother.

"I had it first!" he countered, yanking it back.

Fortunately Mal's quick reflexes saved the snack food from the bickering siblings. "This is Ma's _fancy_ party mix, you know," he pointed out to them as a distraction. "Look at all the yummy things in it. Cereal squares and pretzels circles and sunflower seeds—and look, here's a cricket! And here's a roasted grasshopper. And there's pretzel sticks and—"

"There's not crickets and grasshoppers in it," Connery scoffed, with great authority.

"Oh no?" Mal fished out a raisin. "Well what's this, then?"

"A raisin," the boy responded. Obviously.

"Oh no, I've had plenty of raisins before, and they don't look like this," Mal insisted calmly. "Raisins are dry and shriveled and chewy, though tasty. But sundried crickets are plump and sweet and juicy."

"Which is the grasshopper?" Annabel asked dubiously. Her glittery wings brushed against Mal's shoulder.

He pulled out a cracker stick thing. "See, they get rid of the legs, and they cut off both ends. Then they toast it so it's crunchy."

"That's not a grasshopper," Connery tried to tell them, a lone voice of sanity. "It's a—It's a—" The other three looked at him expectantly. "It's a cracker… stick… thing…"

Mal gave him a look as if to say, you poor ignorant lad. "Perhaps they look very similar," he allowed kindly. Trip bit his lip to keep from grinning.

Connery wasn't taking this lying down. Literally. "Mum!" he hollered, sitting up in case she didn't notice him two meters away and hollering. "There's not really bugs in the fancy party mix, is there?"

Katie shot a look at Pop, who shrugged benignly. "I wouldn't put it past your grandfather, frankly," she decided.

Mal tugged on the boy's arm and drew him back down to the floor. "The show's coming back on! We have to see what happens to Rudolph! The other reindeer are just _so_ terribly mean to him…"

Annabel patted his shoulder. "It's okay, Mal. He gets to fly Santa's sleigh in the end, and everyone loves him!"

"Oh, Annabel!" teased Trip. "You gave away the ending!"

"Well, it's in the song," she reasoned.

A few minutes later. "Well, I just don't like those other reindeer! They seem very rude to me, and probably hypocritical. Especially Blitzen. He had very snide body language, I thought."

"Mal, they're made of clay!" Trip reminded him.

"That's no excuse," Mal decided.

"What's hypocritical?" Emmaline asked, mispronouncing the word.

"It means that they say one thing, and do another," Mal explained succinctly.

"Oh. Is that like how Mummy says _we_ have to eat vegetables, but _she_ never eats them?" the girl persisted.

Trip saw his sister's head snap up and hurriedly thought, _Do not even go there!_ while studiously avoiding eye contact with Katie.

"Well, let's not even go there, shall we?" Mal repeated, in entirely the wrong tone of voice—the tone of voice that said, 'You're absolutely right, but _certain people_ don't want to hear that!' Trip worked very, very hard to keep his expression neutral and focused on petting the dog, as he knew Katie was glaring at him.

"Or in this case," Mal went on obliviously, "the reindeer were quite cruel to Rudolph at first, and only became friendly when they saw that he had the power to guide Santa's sleigh. I imagine that they aren't _really_ fond of him now, they're just _pretending_ to be because he can do something useful for them."

"Yeah, that's mean," Emmaline agreed. "I never thought about that before."

"If I were Rudolph, I should find it rather difficult to be kind to the other reindeer after this incident," Mal concluded harshly.

"Oh, come on," Trip poked him, smiling. "You wouldn't be _mean_ to the other reindeer, would you?"

"No, I shouldn't stoop to their level," Mal sniffed haughtily. "I do pity them a bit, it's obvious Santa Claus wasn't modeling appropriate behavior for them. Trip would never let _me_ act as that nasty Blitzen did," he added to Emmaline.

Trip reached around Ian on the couch and poked his mother in the shoulder. "And you worried I wouldn't raise him right," he grinned at her.

"So what's the next show about?" Mal asked.

"It's _Frosty the Snowman,_ " Connery reported, checking the guide. "That one's fun."

"I don't know…" Trip said, recalling the show from his own childhood. "The villain might be too scary for Mal."

"Was that the one that gave you nightmares all winter that one year?" Katie asked, with just a touch of _something_ in her tone that Trip tensed at. "I remember you were so scared, you burst into tears anytime you saw a snowman decoration!"

"That was Eddie," Trip corrected, adding just as swiftly, "and he was really little, like three or four." Katie gave him a look that seemed to say, _Yeah right. Have it your way._

A few minutes later Mal had pulled back from the screen and the children to be closer to Trip. Well, it was just that the villain in the cartoon had such a mean laugh, and rather cruel eyes, and Frosty was only a snowman, not some sort of phase pistol-wielding Security officer… Mal managed to stay on the floor but rested his swinging bare feet in Trip's lap, the dogs having hopped to Katie and Pop. It was much less scary when Trip was holding on to some part of him.

Of course to Trip, a pair of pale bare feet upturned in his lap was far, far beyond his limits of temptation. For just a second, he ran his thumb down one of Mal's feet. The foot twitched at the tickle, and he quickly backed off. A few minutes later, he gave another light touch. The foot jerked harder. Trip waited a little while, then did it a third time. Now Mal looked back in annoyance, but Trip concentrated fully on the saga of Frosty the kind-hearted snowman, and Mal turned away.

The fourth time, though, he got caught.

"Ma! Trip's tickling me! Make him stop tickling me!"

"Trip," Ma warned, despite his innocent gaze. "Don't tickle him. You know how I feel about that."

Trip might have behaved himself after that, except that Mal's feet were wiggling in his lap, practically begging to be taken advantage of.

So he did.

"Ma! Ma! He's still tickling me!" Mal rolled up so he was kneeling between Trip's knees, half draped over his lap. "Ma said not to tickle me, and you _did_ tickle me! You disobeyed Ma! You're going to get into _such_ trouble!"

"I know what _you_ are," Trip laughed, ruffling Mal's hair. "You're a big ol' tattle-tale!"

"I am _not_ a tattle-tale," Mal protested, resting his head on Trip's thigh and facing the comm screen. "I just want everyone to know that you've done something bad."

"You just remember, you're not too big to put over my knee," Ma warned. "Either of you." And somehow, both Trip and Mal knew that they were not.

A few minutes later. "What a horrible story! That was so sad!"

"Come on, Mal, it's just a cartoon—" Trip tried.

"But Frosty's _dead_! He melted in the greenhouse trying to save the sick little boy! He's just a puddle now!"

"It's okay, Mal," Emmaline said, crawling up to give him a hug. "Frosty's not really dead. He's just going through the water cycle. He'll evaporate, then come back as snow next winter!"

"Guess someone's been payin' attention in science class," Trip remarked fondly.

"Still… It's really quite traumatic," Mal insisted, yawning as he burrowed into Trip's lap more. "I would melt into a puddle for you, Trip."

Trip smiled and scratched behind his ear. "I know you would, buddy."

"Perhaps I would be recycled as your shower water," he mused sleepily.

Trip tried to keep his face straight—he knew how Mal meant his statement, but he also knew how certain people, at least one of whom had been watching them _very_ carefully ever since Mal had taken up residence in Trip's lap, might take his words. "Well… I think it's past your bedtime, buddy," he remarked, stretching and dislodging Mal.

"I'm not tired," Mal whined, in a very tired voice. Ignoring the protest, Trip stood and began to give his good nights to those assembled. Defiantly Mal crawled up onto the couch cushion where Trip had been sitting, rolling into a ball and bending his neck at an impossible angle so that his head was upside down. "I don't want to go to bed!"

"Please, Uncle Trip, can't Mal stay up a little later?" Annabel pleaded charmingly.

"The next show is _Weebo, The Missing Elf_ ," Emmaline added. "It's really good!"

Trip was sorely tempted. But then he took another look at Mal's drooping eyelids (though it was harder for them to sag when his head was upside-down) and decided it wouldn't be worth the fuss Mal might cause later, when he was even _more_ tired. "Sorry," he said, shaking his head. "Gotta keep him on a strict schedule, you know."

"How come Mal has to go to bed so early?" Connery persisted.

"Yes, how come?" Mal seconded brattily.

"Even Annabel doesn't have to go to bed _this_ early, and she's just a _baby_ ," the boy added, with great superiority.

Immediately Annabel lodged her outrage. "I'm not a baby! I'm six and two-fifths!"

Trip headed off the ensuing argument by dropping to one knee before Annabel. "Well there you go! Mal has to go to bed before you because he's younger than you!"

"Oh, I forgot about that," Mal admitted.

Connery gave his uncle a disbelieving look. "How can he be younger than Annabel? That just doesn't make sense!"

"Mal, tell 'em how old you are," Trip suggested.

"I'm three and a half!"

" _Years?!_ " sputtered Connery.

"Yup," Trip confirmed with a grin. "His species ages differently than humans. So you see," he finished conspiratorially, "he's really just a baby, and he needs to go to bed early."

"I heard that!" Mal pointed out grumpily.

Trip stood and turned back to him. "Well come on, crankypants, let's go," he encouraged, scratching Mal's stomach.

Mal whined in protest. "But there's another show on!"

"You really wanna see a story about a lost, scared little elf?" Trip inquired.

"No," Mal answered quickly, his only defense vanishing. At last he gave up and began to uncoil himself. "Good night, Ian," he said, slithering onto the lap of the man who'd been engrossed in his data pad most of the evening. Then he slid over to give Ma a hug. "Good night, Ma. Good night, Pop." He fell bonelessly to the floor to embrace the children. "Good night, Connery and Emmaline and Annabel." Finally he stood again and engulfed Katie in an unexpected full-body hug. "Good night, Katie. Thank you for making the mushroom surprise, it was very delicious, except for the white squishy chunks which I picked out."

"Um… you're welcome, Mal," Katie responded, clearly having no idea what else to say or do.

"Okay, buddy, come on," Trip told him, taking his hand. "Time for bed."


	3. Chapter 3

_Thursday_

Trip felt his shoulder being poked and tried to ignore it. However, the insistent jabbing didn't go away. Finally he was forced to open his mouth and mumble, " _What?!_ " in his most annoyed-yet-sleepy voice.

"Can we go down to the hot tub now?"

He had to be dreaming. He really had to be. Because there was _no way_ Mal was asking to go down to the hot tub at—Trip reached out an uncoordinated hand and batted at the chrono on the bedside table—two in the morning. "No," he told dream-Mal, and concentrated on going back to sleep.

But dream-Mal was persistent. "But you said maybe we could go down to the wonderful lovely hot tub after the children were asleep!"

"Two. In. The morning," Trip pointed out to the Mal he feared was all too real. " _Everyone's_ asleep now. Including me."

" _You_ aren't asleep," Mal scoffed, as if Trip couldn't fool him that easily. "You're talking to me!"

Trip turned towards him, just a little. "I _was_ asleep, before _you_ woke me up!"

"Well since you're awake _now_ …"

"Mal. Go back to sleep."

Mal began to pout. When Mal pouted he did so with his entire body, so Trip would be sure not to miss it. "You _said_ we could—"

Trip didn't allow him to finish. "I meant, like, ten o'clock in the evening!" he clarified. "Which we both slept through."

"I wouldn't have slept through it if you hadn't interrupted my afternoon nap with your horrible dead fish," Mal grumped.

"See, you're cranky," Trip told him. "That means you're sleepy. Not that you need to go boil for twenty minutes."

"But we can sleep late in the morning!" Mal wheedled.

"It _is_ morning!" Trip sighed. "Look, can't you just—take a hot bath or something? The bathroom's right there…"

"It's not the same."

"Any possible chance you could go down to the hot tub alone?" Trip knew the answer to that one already.

"No! What if there's gators? What if I slip and hit my head? What if the dogs get me? What if I stay in too long and boil my insides to jelly?"

"Gee, it sounds too dangerous," Trip observed. "You'd better not go at all."

"But, Trii-iip! You said! And it's so wonderful! I want you to sit in the hot tub with me! Please please please—"

"Would you shut up? You're gonna wake the whole house!" Trip glared at Mal in the dim light, wanting to smother him with a pillow. Yet at the same time he felt himself wanting to give in, if only to shut him up. "Can't even imagine what people would think, if they found us in the hot tub together at two AM…"

Mal looked at him for a long moment. "Perhaps I ought to sleep on the floor," he said suddenly. "Or on the couch downstairs—"

He started to scoot off the bed but Trip grabbed him back, utterly confused. "What are you talkin' about, buddy? Of course you shouldn't sleep anywhere else…"

"If _your sister_ would think it weird that we're in the hot tub together, I'm sure she must think it weird that we sleep in the same bed," Mal observed coolly. "I should also refrain from touching you so much, that's terribly weird as well—"

"Oh, stop it," Trip ordered. He pulled Mal back into his lap, wrapping his arms around him.

"Well, it's all very well and good when there's no one else _here_ —"

"Mal." Trip rubbed his stomach a little until he'd quieted down. "Katie wouldn't think it was weird if you were my boyfriend. Or preferably my husband. But you aren't. So she's got no idea what to think about you, what little box to put you in. That's what really drives her crazy." He smirked a little. "Sorry if I've been lettin' _her_ drive _me_ a little crazy."

"D'you want me to be your boyfriend, Trip?"

"Thanks for the offer, but no," Trip assured him. "You're a little young for me."

"Okay." Mal relaxed for a few moments in Trip's arms. "So… can we—"

Trip made an exasperated little noise and rested his forehead briefly against Mal's shoulder. "Yes, fine, okay!" he finally conceded, smothering Mal's whoop of joy with his hand. "Change into your trunks and run down there and heat it up, you little pest. I'll be along pretty soon. And I want you to know how spoiled you are!"

Mal turned and threw his arms around Trip. "Oh, _thank_ you, Trip! I love you!"

"Go on, speed it up," Trip ordered, shoving him off the bed. "And we're only gonna be in for twenty minutes, no more!"

 

Trip stumbled down the stairs half-awake, sleepily rubbing his eyes. The only thing that had tempted him out of bed this early after his late-night dip in the hot tub was the possibility of food; his stomach was rumbling too much to let him return to sleep. Four bright pairs of eyes gazed piercingly at him as he entered the kitchen, momentarily causing Trip to stagger backwards. It was just unnatural for people to be so alert this early in the morning, he decided.

“Good morning, Uncle Trip!” three little voices chorused, sticky with syrup and muffled by pancakes.

“You haven’t showered,” Mal remarked, wrinkling his nose. “You’ve not even dressed! Oh dear, I knew I shouldn’t have left you all alone up there…”

Trip grunted in response and sat down at the kitchen island, hoping his mother would remember the non-verbal cues from long ago and present him with the appropriate objects. “Oh, he just needs a little coffee, he’ll perk right up,” Ma commented, filling a mug for her older son.

“You look like a _vagabond_ ,” Mal continued, unrelenting. He poked at Trip, who was trying to get a few extra moments of sleep while his mother walked across the room with the coffee. “Immediately after breakfast I shall take you back upstairs and clean you properly.” The children giggled, the high-pitched sound cutting into Trip’s sleep-fogged brain.

“Here you go, baby,” Ma said soothingly, setting the coffee down in front of him. “You want me to spoon it into your mouth?” Blearily Trip lifted his head and glared at his mother’s smirking face. He pulled the coffee cup to him as though it were a lifeline, inhaling the bitter brew and praying it would help liven him up. “You wanted decaf, right?” Ma teased, and Trip choked a little.

Mal patted his back. “Poor Trip. Dear me, I didn’t realize how sensitive your sleep cycle has become! Tonight I shall give you a nice massage before bed, I think. Ma and I were just talking about the calming effects of lavender-scented lotion, I think I shall borrow some for you—“

Trip held up his hand. “You’re not greasin’ me up with _lavender_ ,” he finally cut in, his first words of the day.

“Well no, of course not,” Mal assured him. “It’s only lavender- _scented_.”

“What are we gonna do today, Uncle Trip? Huh, huh?” prodded the children.

“Mummy said something about trimming the tree,” Annabel remembered.

“Can we help you put the lights up on the roof? That would be cool!” Connery hinted.

“Aren’t there more people coming today?” worried Emmaline.

“Ma! Are there any more pancakes available?” asked Mal. “Trip needs sustenance! He might waste away!”

“I think he’ll be fine, baby,” Ma replied, but nevertheless she turned towards the stove. “What shape should I make for him?”

“Shape?” Trip mumbled, not entirely on the ball yet. “Don’t pancakes just come in… _round_?”

“You can have _round_ if you want, Trip,” Mal promised him, hovering anxiously. “But I’ve tried all the shapes, and I think the gingerbread-boy shape is the best.”

“Wha?” said Trip in confusion.

“Grandma made the pancakes different shapes, see?” Connery tried to explain, holding up a partially-eaten pancake. It did not appear to have ever been round, though at this point it was difficult to say just exactly what shape it was supposed to be. “I had the Christmas trees!”

“Mine are square like presents,” Emmaline added. “And Mal put ribbons and bows on them with syrup!”

“I got the gingerbread boys!” Annabel exclaimed with delight. “I like to bite their heads off!”

Mal gave her a slightly disturbed look and patted her gently on the head. “Yes, well, the gingerbread boys _are_ the best, aren’t they?”

“What are you talking about?” Connery insisted. “They’re all made the same way. It’s the same batter.”

“Well, I suppose you’ve only eaten the Christmas tree ones,” Mal allowed kindly. “I think if you were to make a scientific study of all the available shapes, you would see that the gingerbread boys taste the best.”

Connery rolled his eyes and was about to object when Ma returned to them bearing a fresh plate of pancakes. “Three gingerbread boy pancakes, just for my baby,” she beamed, setting the food down in front of Trip. “How about some more coffee there, dear?”

“I think Trip needs some milk as well, Ma,” Mal suggested innocently. “It’s full of calcium, you know, and Dr. Phlox says calcium is an important mineral one must consume.”

“Uncle Trip should have some orange juice, too,” Annabel added, draining her own glass. “Mummy says orange juice is good for us.”

“Maybe some apple juice as well,” Emmaline put forth. “I don’t really like orange juice, it’s got _things_ in it.”

Trip looked at the plate full of pancakes and the _four_ glasses of liquid set in front of him, then over at the five people watching him eagerly. “An objective observer,” he began dryly, “might think that you people didn’t believe I could take care of myself.”

“Oh, that’s not true at all, Trip,” Mal told him soothingly, petting his hair. “Now eat your breakfast so I can wash and dress you for the day. Do you want me to cut up your pancakes for you?”

 

The tree was assembled. The lights were piled neatly on the floor, the garlands on the couch. Several boxes of ornaments were stacked beside the fireplace. The angel tree topper—which was animatronic and had always been slightly frightening to several members of the Tucker family—was stowed safely in its box at the back of the hall closet, where it would probably remain for yet another year. Christmas music was playing, hot beverages were available, and all that was needed to start this traditional holiday decorating procedure were a few youthful, cheerful workers.

“Come in here, children!” Katie summoned. Mal followed the three young McCaffreys in, quizzical as to why Trip was untangling strings of lights while Ma and Pop were making a mess with ropes of colorful fabric and metallic fringe. “We’re going to trim the tree now! Who wants to help?”

“I can help,” Mal offered immediately. He looked the tree over. “I believe I shall need a very sharp cutting instrument, and some work gloves would be lovely.”

“I don’t wanna put stuff on the tree,” Connery whined. “It’s _boring_!”

“I miss our Christmas tree at home,” Emmaline sniffed. “Its lights won’t be on for Christmas this year…”

“I want to help!” Annabel declared. “I can tell you where _every single ornament_ should go!”

Katie sighed and glanced at her stepmother, who just shook her head. “Maybe you should all just go back to playing outside,” she decided.

 

"…now I've got some leftover pecan pie and some cheesecake," Ma was saying as lunch finished up. Mal had been pleased to see that the "astro shapes" macaroni had gone over well. "Everything else is to take tomorrow, though."

"I don't know if that's gonna cut it, Ma," Trip teased. "I was kinda thinkin', maybe Mal here would like to go out for ice cream."

"Oh, I would, I would," Mal responded excitedly. The children looked up hopefully.

"Anyone else wanna join us?" Trip added with a grin. The three kids immediately burst into a chorus of agreement.

"You have had _plenty_ of sweets already today," Katie reminded them with disapproval, and their faces fell.

"Aw, Mum, couldn't we _please_ go out for ice cream?"

"With Mal and Uncle Trip?"

"Just one scoop each!"

"Aw, come on, Mom!" Trip added his voice to the fray.

Katie gave him an unamused look and he merely grinned maddeningly in return. Still, she was wise enough not to stand between three children and their ice cream. "One scoop each," she told them firmly, giving in. Whoops of joy met her consent.

"We wanna ride with Mal and Uncle Trip!"

"Mal, sit in the back with us!"

"What am I now, your ice cream chauffeur?" Trip laughed, scooping Annabel up.

"Yes!" Trip was certain he heard Mal join in that response.

"That place on the corner still open?" Trip asked as they piled into two transports. "The one with the funny little tables?"

"Oh, I reckon so," Ma replied casually.

"Just went there last week," Pop smirked.

"Hush, you," Ma said to him. "You don't have to tell _everything_ you know."

"Sit by _me_ , Mal!"

"No, sit by _me_!"

"Everybody better be at least _sitting_ ," Trip called over his shoulder from the front. "And put your safety belts on."

"Mal, can you help me with mine?" Annabel asked plaintively.

"Of course. We'll have to open your wings a bit, though… That doesn't hurt, does it?"

"No, it's fine."

"There you go."

"Thanks, Mal!"

"Everybody strapped in?" Trip prompted.

"Yes!"

"Everybody ready to go?"

"Yes!"

"Everybody want some ice cream?"

"Yes!"

"Eh, I've changed my mind," Trip asserted. "Let's go back in the house and have some broccoli." The suggestion was loudly booed.

"Well, I do like broccoli, actually…" Mal noted. Seeing the children's expressions he quickly added, "But ice cream is better."

"Yay!"

"Well, alright then, I guess we'll go," Trip conceded.

"Yay!"

Trip guided the transport down the road to the ice cream shop on the edge of town, pulling in to the parking lot considerably ahead of the vehicle carrying the Tucker and McCaffrey parents. "Wonder where your folks went," he mused, helping the children out before remotely guiding the vehicle to a parking spot ten meters up.

"Maybe they went to the wrong place," fretted Emmaline.

"Well don't you worry about that," Trip assured her. "We'll meet up with them again. After all," he added, giving her a smile, "we know where they're staying, don't we?"

Connery was already inside drooling over the cases of frozen delights on display. "I'm goin' to get a scoop of Double Chocolate Ripple, and a scoop of Peanut Butter Cocoa, and a scoop of Choco-Mint Madness…"

"Mum said we could only have _one_ scoop!" Emmaline reminded her brother in a superior tone.

"Well Mum's not here right now, is she?" he pointed out smugly.

"Mal, can you pick me up so I can see the ice cream?" Annabel requested.

Mal did so. "I don't mean to put pressure on you," he told her gently, "but this would be one of those times when it would be terribly useful if you knew how to fly."

"I'm working on it, I'm working on it," Annabel insisted. "It's hard, you know. Let's look over there."

"Uncle Trip! If Connery gets three scoops _I_ want three scoops!" Emmaline was demanding.

"You can't, only _I_ can," her brother taunted her.

"Why can't _I_ have three scoops?!" she insisted.

"Because I thought of it first," he explained. Unable to escape his logic, Emmaline began to whine instead.

"Are _they_ getting three scoops," Annabel asked with interest, squirming in Mal's arms. " _I_ want three scoops!"

" _No one's getting three scoops!_ " Trip corrected, loudly. "Just one scoop each, like your mom said." Because just the _one_ scoop had gotten him into enough trouble with Katie. "You guys know what you want yet?" The two teenage girls waiting behind the counter perked up slightly from their bored positions. Trip imagined they had seen every possible form of behavior while working the ice cream counter and that so far his family hadn't done anything worthy of note. He wondered if _he_ had ever been that young and listless at his early jobs.

"Can you do _half_ scoops?" Connery asked hopefully, trying to squeeze in as many flavors as possible. "How about thirds?" The girl blinked at him and shook her head.

"Uncle Trip, what's this word?" Emmaline questioned, pointing at a flavor label.

"Mocha," he read. "That's like chocolate and coffee together." She wrinkled her nose and moved on.

"Go back to the other side, Mal," Annabel requested blithely. "I wanna look at those flavors again." He didn't point out that they'd been over there twice already.

"Well, finally!" Trip exclaimed as his parents, sister, and brother-in-law entered the ice cream shop. "What happened to you guys?"

"Mum, Connery said he was going to get three scoops because you weren't here!" Emmaline tattled eagerly.

"I was just kidding!" he insisted, glaring at his sister. "You're just too _little_ to know that!"

"Mum!"

"Quiet, both of you," their mother ordered.

"We got directed to the ice cream place a few blocks over," Pop was explaining, rolling his eyes. "Guess you didn't?"

"Let's look at those over there again," Annabel said to Mal indecisively.

"Oh. I just drove it myself," Trip replied to his father. "Must be a glitch in the system."

"You drove it yourself?" Katie frowned at Trip. "Why would you want to do that?"

"Well, you don't get misdirected by computer glitches, for one thing," Trip pointed out. "And it's a lot faster, besides."

"What if you _packed_ the cone with one flavor, then put a scoop of another on top?" Connery wheedled to the ice cream girl. She shook her head.

"You're not allowed to do that," Emmaline told him unnecessarily.

"Well, it's rather _unsafe_ , isn't it?" Katie suggested to her brother.

"One scoop, one flavor, kid!" Trip reminded his nephew fondly, before turning back to his sister. "Unsafe? No, I fly shuttlepods all the time."

"In traffic?" Katie questioned sharply.

Trip rolled his eyes. "You guys pick out something yet or what?" he prompted the children.

"Did you at least have my children wear their safety belts?" Katie asked of her brother, with a frostiness that had nothing to do with the ice cream surrounding them.

"Yes, of course I did," Trip told her with annoyance, distractedly facing the girl at the register. "I'm payin' for all of these."

"Oh, we can pay for our own, son," Pop assured him.

"No, Pop, it's my treat," Trip insisted.

" _You_ can't get Chocolate Pretzel Crunch," Emmaline ordered her brother. " _I'm_ going to get Chocolate Pretzel Crunch!"

"Can, too!" Connery asserted. "Chocolate Pretzel Crunch," he told the girl with the scoop.

"It's not fair!" Emmaline complained.

"Don't whine, Em," her mother told her.

"What's not fair, sweetie?" Trip asked with concern, crouching beside the girl.

"He always gets everything first, 'cause he's older!" Emmaline pouted.

"You know, your mom's older than me, and sometimes I felt the same way," Trip assured her. "You just gotta learn to be patient. Sometimes goin' first ain't all it's cracked up to be, you know."

"Like you ever had trouble getting what you wanted," Katie muttered under her breath.

"Hey, ice cream, what a great idea," Ian said, apropos of nothing. It was entirely possible he had just now realized where they were.

"So what flavor are you gonna get?" Trip asked Emmaline.

"Double Chocolate Ripple, I guess," she decided, with resignation.

"Alrighty then." Trip straightened. "One Double Chocolate Ripple, please," he told the ice cream girl.

"What's this pink again?" Annabel asked, pointing.

"Peppermint," Mal reminded her.

"And what was the other pink?"

"Cherries Jubilee." They had visited each at least four times now.

"Annabel, make up your mind!" prodded her mother. "We haven't got all day."

"Hey, it's a big decision," Trip commented.

"What's a jubilee?" Annabel wanted to know.

"I'm not sure," Mal admitted.

"No, Pop, I got it, really, I got it," Trip persisted.

"Well, just let me pay for me and your ma…"

" _No_ , Pop, I got it."

"Trip! What's a jubilee?"

"What?" Trip asked in confusion, turning to Mal.

"What's a jubilee? Like in Cherries Jubilee."

"Oh. Um, it's something happy, I think, like a party," Trip tried. He turned back just in time to keep his father from slipping a credit chip to the girl at the register. "Pop!"

"This is really _gross_!" Connery announced, staring in disgust at his Chocolate Pretzel Crunch.

"Connery!" Katie chided. "Manners!"

"Well, maybe Emmaline will trade with you," Trip suggested to him, "if you're _nice_."

Emmaline gave her Double Chocolate Ripple a self-satisfied lick. "I don't know, I like this a _lot_."

"Cherries Jubilee, please," Mal ordered for Annabel.

"I don't know, maybe I want the other…" she mused hesitantly.

"Too late!" Trip told her cheerfully. "Ian, you want anything?"

"Oh," the slender man remarked in surprise. "I hadn't really thought about it."

Trip gave up on him and looked to his mother. "Ma, what are _you_ getting?"

"Vanilla yogurt," she replied, taking the cup from the ice cream girl.

"Wow, way to live dangerously, Ma," Trip deadpanned.

"Well, it _is_ French vanilla," Ma pointed out.

At last almost everyone in the party was seated with a frozen treat, though Emmaline and Connery were still in the midst of fierce negotiations. Only Mal and Trip were left perusing the flavors.

"Do I actually get to have some ice cream?" Mal asked, not hopeful.

Trip smiled at him but turned to the girl behind the counter. "What have you got that doesn't have milk in it?"

She directed them to a specially-marked case. "Ooh, _fruit ice_ ," Mal read. "That sounds good."

"Hey look, they have pineapple," Trip pointed out.

"Really? Ooh, I want to get that!" He paused to consider. "Though the… _boysenberry_ is a lovely color… What's a boysenberry?"

"Um, it's—a berry," Trip told him.

"Excuse me," Mal began politely, gaining the attention of the ice cream girl. "Do you know the scientific name for the boysenberry?" She raised her eyebrows at him.

"Guess not," Trip concluded. The Rocky Road at the far end was calling to him—it had been ages since he'd had Rocky Road. But in addition to the milk the flavor also contained nuts, and he knew Mal liked to share. "Why don't you get pineapple, and I'll get boysenberry?" he offered.

The lure of Rocky Road faded when he saw Mal's delighted grin. "Okay!"

Moments later, fruit ice in hand, they approached the table. "Mal! Mal, sit here with us!" Trip was consigned to the 'grown-up' end of the table.

"Mal, try mine! It's really good!"

"It's gross! Try mine!"

"No, try _mine_!"

"Sorry," Mal informed them regretfully, feeling Trip's eyes on him. "I can't eat ice cream."

This terrible revelation was enough to make the children fall silent momentarily. "Why not?" Emmaline queried.

"Ice cream, or anything else with raw milk in it, makes me intoxicated," Mal explained, licking at his fruit ice.

"What's intoxicated?" Annabel asked, mispronouncing the word.

"Drunk," her brother clarified succinctly.

"Connery!" Katie warned.

"Well, it _is_."

"One time," Mal told them conversationally, "I got _so_ drunk on ice cream that I fell down the stairs and broke my arm."

The children seemed morbidly impressed with this. Katie was not. "And that's why we shouldn't drink, isn't it, kids?" she cut in with forced brightness.

"Milk?" Emmaline asked in confusion.

"But I love ice cream!" Annabel protested.

"Me too," Connery agreed heartily.

Katie rolled her eyes then shot a glare at her brother, who tried to look like he was smirking at something else.

 

A transport horn blared from outside, unnecessarily loud and obnoxious, and Ma shook her head. “That’ll be Lizzie, make no mistake.”

Trip jumped up immediately and headed for the front door, eager to see his baby sister. Trip and Lizzie had always been more alike in personality than any of their siblings, able to turn from expertly salting each other’s wounds to being the best of friends—and back—in the space of a heartbeat, despite the difference in years between them. That Trip had always felt especially protective of Lizzie was no secret, though she alternated between railing against him for it and using it to her advantage as the situation warranted.

Mal didn’t follow hard upon Trip’s heels, however. Instead he glanced nervously over at Emmaline, who had also failed to run for the door with her relatives, and asked quietly, “Do you know what a _wiener dog_ is?”

“It’s a little barking dog,” she reported. “Why?”

“I think Lizzie has _two_ of them.” Mal and the little girl shared a worried look, then simultaneously headed for the parlor and the protective gap behind the couch—the opposite direction as everyone else in the house.

“Come on, come on,” prodded Mal, helping the girl onto the couch.

“I need to take my shoes off,” Emmaline protested, plucking at the fastenings. “Mummy said, I shouldn’t get dirt on Grandma Tucker’s furniture—“

They both froze as high-pitched yapping—somewhat similar to that of the Westies, but more insistent and sinister—was heard in the distance. “They sound _awful_!” Emmaline gasped.

“They do,” Mal agreed. He knelt on the floor at the little girl’s feet, reaching for her shoes. “Let me help you with those—“

“They’re getting closer!” The clatter of doggy nails on hard floors reverberated as the dachshunds diligently sought out the least dog-friendly people in the house.

Mal stood, giving up on the shoes. “I’ll just lift you _over_ the couch,” he decided, picking Emmaline up.

“Yip yip yip!” Mal turned towards the doorway, gasped in horror, and leaped straight into the air.

“Why do dogs always go straight for Mal—“ Trip grumbled, tracing the little dogs through the house.

“Well I don’t know _why_ Emmaline just isn’t used to them, we’ve always had Westies—“ Katie was muttering behind him.

Trip stopped in the parlor where the wiener dogs were excitedly barking—with their necks craned upwards, occasionally attempting to balance on their hind legs to lift themselves a few centimeters closer to their goal. Slowly Trip turned his own head up to the ceiling. Sure enough, there was Mal, braced in the corner somehow, glaring down at him.

And there was Emmaline, arms tight around Mal’s neck, peeking down over his shoulder.

“Oh my G-d!” Katie exclaimed when she spotted them. “Get down here right now!” She turned to her brother with a fierce gaze. “Tell him to get down _right now_!”

Trip rolled his eyes, immediately set against making Mal come down, no matter how reasonable the request. “Well, he’s just afraid of the dogs, they’re perfectly safe up there—“

Katie’s eyes blazed and for a second Trip experienced a terrifying flashback to the summer when he was ten, when he had stolen Katie’s diary from her bedroom. They were both adults now, surely she wouldn’t try to drown him in the lake _this_ time… Nonetheless, he didn’t want to risk it.

Trying to sound casual, as though he were just humoring his older sister, Trip turned back to Mal. “Well, come on back down, why don’t you, buddy?”

“Are the horrible barking sausages going away?” Mal snapped in return.

“They just want to lick you, Mal,” Trip tried to explain, though somehow he knew the other man would not take comfort in that fact. “They aren’t going to bite.” He hoped.

“Emmaline! Are you alright?” Katie demanded. “You hold on tight!”

“Yes, Mummy,” Emmaline assured her. “I’m fine.”

Trip was trying to herd and/or capture the yipping little dogs, who seemed to enjoy the little game their Uncle Trip was playing with them. “C’mere, you d—n little—“

“What is all this commotion in here?” Ma asked, sticking her head into the parlor. She glanced upwards. “Mal, you’d better not be getting any dirt on my walls or ceiling!”

“I don’t _think_ I am, Ma,” Mal replied earnestly. “If I am, I promise I shall clean it.”

“Oh, honestly, is that all you can think of right now?!” Katie exclaimed. “My daughter is pinned to the _ceiling_ by that— _person_ , and—“

“Hey!” Trip left the dogs and glared at his older sister. “Don’t yell at my mother! It’s not _her_ fault—“

“No, it’s _yours_ , because you can’t control—“

“Oscar! Schnitzel!” Ma interrupted calmly. The two little dachshunds stopped barking and turned towards her expectantly. “Out to the garage with you! Go on, _git_!” Their tails sagging, the small dogs trotted in the direction Ma pointed. Trip stared after them, open-mouthed, and gave his mother a look of amazed admiration. She did _not_ return it. “If only children were as easy to manage as dogs,” she told both him and Katie pointedly, then turned and left.

Duly chastised, the two siblings tried to get back to their grown-up mindsets. “Uh, Mal, you can come down now, the dogs are gone,” Trip informed the other man unnecessarily.

“Maybe we should get a ladder,” Katie suggested. Trip gave her a look.

“Are you holding on tightly?” Mal queried of the little girl on his back.

“Yes, real tight.”

“Alright, I’m going to jump down now.” And he did, landing in a neat crouch on the floor, so lightly that the curios on the shelves didn’t even rattle. Emmaline slid a few more centimeters down his back and stood safe and sound on the parlor floor.

She rather felt like being back on the ceiling when she saw the look in her mother’s eyes. “Come along, _Emmaline_ ,” Katie said, taking her hand firmly. Trip had the feeling the little girl was being dragged off for a lecture—though on what, he wasn’t sure… the inadvisability of hanging about in ceiling corners with aliens?

Mal’s doleful expression said he was expecting admonishment as well. “Oh, don’t worry about it,” Trip sighed instead, patting his head. “You didn’t do anything wrong. At least, I don’t _think_ you did.”

“Well where did everyone go?” a cheerful voice demanded, approaching the parlor. “I get one warm welcome, then everyone runs off before Steve even gets in the house.”

“Maybe it’s me,” a second, more masculine voice joked.

“Probably,” Lizzie agreed. “Well there you are!” She walked into the parlor, a bundle of vivacious energy accompanied by a not-bad-looking but somewhat generic young man, and raised an eyebrow at the dark-haired man who knelt on the floor in front of her brother. “You must be Mal.”

Trip sighed and tugged on the back of Mal’s collar. “Get up.” Mal did so, standing awkwardly beside Trip facing Lizzie and Steve. “Shake hands.” Mal did so.

“Hey, know any other tricks?” Steve joked, and Trip immediately glared at him. He tended to be sensitive about dog jokes involving Mal, unless of course _he_ had made them.

“Where’d you find _this_ guy?” Trip asked his sister rudely, his tone indicating it couldn’t have been any place of good breeding or taste.

“Oh, he’s just trying to be funny,” Lizzie insisted off-hand.

“Well he’s gonna have to raise the bar a little,” Trip advised. Clearly he didn’t think Steve was up to the challenge.

“Well—I—uh,” the flustered young man stammered.

Lizzie rolled her eyes at her oldest brother. “Come on, Steve, let’s go meet Pop. I’m sure _he_ will appreciate your sense of humor better!”

The young woman turned away with a bit of a flounce, her thick blond braid bouncing down the middle of her back. Almost too quickly to see, Mal reached out and gave the braid a tug—not hard enough to do any damage, of course, just enough to make Lizzie squawk with indignation and whip around. “Trip Tucker, I am gonna sic Ma on you if you start up _that_ again—“

Trip was staring at Mal in shock. “It wasn’t me, it was—“

Mal had already gasped in horror at his own actions. “I’m so sorry! I don’t know why I did that! I just really wanted to!”

Lizzie gave her brother a look, rolled her eyes again, and finally left, with Steve in tow. Trip wheeled around to look sternly at Mal, hands on his hips. “I don’t know!” Mal insisted again, with mystified distress. “I just really wanted to tug on her long hair rope! I’m so sorry.”

Trip patted his shoulder. “Well, I can’t say as I blame you,” he was forced to admit. “I used to do it all the time when we were younger.”

 

"Okay, now how do you want these, Ma?" Trip questioned, holding the string of outdoor lights and gazing at the roofline speculatively.

"Oh, I don't know," Ma fretted. "Maybe we just shouldn't do lights this year… They'll only be up the day before Christmas now, and I'd probably have you take them down before you left anyway, so…"

Trip put his hands on his hips and gave his mother a look of exasperation. "Ma, I just spent an hour digging all these lights out, checking them, untangling them, hooking them together—"

"I helped!" reminded Mal eagerly.

"Well I know, I know," Ma allowed, "but now I'm thinkin' better of it."

"Why didn't you have Eddie and Pop put them up earlier, if that's so important?" Trip questioned.

"Well, it's been rainy here the last few weekends, no need for your brother to get up on the roof and work with electricity in _that_ ," Ma pointed out. "Besides, Eddie's got that new baby now…"

"What's _that_ got to do with anything? He wouldn't be taking the baby up on the roof!"

Ma gave her older son a look. "And if he should fall and break his arm, Elaine doesn't need _two_ people to look after!"

Trip rolled his eyes. "Ma, you want me to put these lights up or not? It's me, Lizzie, Steve, and Mal, we can handle it. Well," he amended, "I don't know about _Steve_ , but Mal's worth at least two people easy when it comes to this sort of thing." Ma still looked indecisive. "Hey, Mal!" Trip handed him a string of lights. "These go along the roofline of the porch, see? Go start attaching them like I showed you."

Mal picked up the string of lights. "This is waterproof, isn't it?"

"Um, it's for outdoor use, so… _yeah_."

"Okay." Mal gripped the coated wire in his teeth and scrambled up one of the columns of the porch to its roof, as easily as climbing a staircase. "Right here, Trip?" he called down, adjusting the lights.

"Right there, buddy!" Trip confirmed. He grinned at his mother. "See? He's like a little monkey!"

"Hey, Ma, who did your lights? A monkey?" laughed Lizzie, poking her brother's shoulder. Steve chuckled appreciatively until Trip glared at him.

"Ha ha, you're very witty," Trip shot back to her. "Maybe you'd actually like to get up on the roof and do some work now?"

"Age before beauty," she chirped, sweeping a hand towards the ladder.

Trip rolled his eyes and began to climb, muttering under his breath.

"Elizabeth Louise!" he snapped a few minutes later. "If you don't quit horsin' around I'm gonna send you back inside, before you fall and break your neck!"

"Aye, aye, sir!" Lizzie replied with a mock salute. She and Steve snickered gleefully.

"I'm serious!" Trip continued from his position on the roof above her. "Keep your mind on the job and not on Mr. Wonderful!"

"His name is _Steve_ , jerk!" she shouted back.

"Steve's gonna find himself brained with these clamps soon, if he doesn't straighten up," Trip threatened, adding under his breath, "Assuming he _has_ any brains…"

"I heard that!" Lizzie insisted, although she probably hadn't. "You wanna put these things up by yourself, fine!" She set her tools down and headed for the ladder.

"Fine, I will!" Trip yelled down at her. She and Steven hadn't exactly been making a lot of progress anyway, unless the job consisted of admiring each other's appearance in t-shirts.

"Trip! Watch me walk across the pointy line of the roof!" Mal prodded, jogging along the peak.

"Yes, you're very impressive," Trip allowed. "Get down to where Lizzie was and finish what she was doing, alright?"

"It's not even difficult!" Mal continued, speaking of his gymnastic feat even as he scrambled to the lower elevation as directed. "It's quite broad, really, and the house isn't even moving like things in Engineering are."

Trip scooted himself along the roof, trying to reach around the chimney. "Good for you," he grunted distractedly. He began to balance on one knee to get a bit more leverage. "That's very—" His knee slipped on the roof tiles and he lost his balance, sliding down the steep slope with the backyard far, far below. Oddly enough, however, Trip wasn't really worried, because he had complete and utter faith in—

"There, I've got you," Mal told him, grabbing his arm. He helped Trip into a more stable position. "Perhaps _you_ ought to do the part Lizzie was doing, and _I'll_ do this part, hmm?"

"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea," Trip agreed easily. "Uh, let's not tell anyone about this little incident, alright?"

"Especially Ma," Mal agreed knowingly. "She might tan your hide!" Trip snorted in an undignified way and started to climb down to the roof over the porch. "Except," Mal added thoughtfully, "when we first arrived, she said you were pale, and _you_ said you would have to start tanning… So if Ma becomes angry at you, does that mean she will force you to lie out in the sun?"

"Um, no," Trip corrected. "I guess, in a way, it kind of means—"

"Hey, Trip!" called a voice from the lawn. It was Lizzie.

Trip looked down at her gratefully, having been saved from yet another explanation he wasn't exactly certain of. "Yeah?"

"Ma said I had to come back out and help you!"

"Well _ha_ ," Trip taunted her. She stuck her tongue out at him.

"You want us to get back up there?" Lizzie offered.

"No," her brother decided. "Me and Mal are almost done. Why don't you two put the lights in the bushes?"

"Okay!"

Trip shook his head and started affixing his string of lights to the edge of the roof. Why was it that he and Lizzie could toss insults back and forth, even get really angry at each other, yet be perfectly fine a few minutes later… but Katie would snap at him and brood for days if he just looked at her the wrong way? Trip couldn't even imagine why anyone would _want_ to go through life being constantly offended by those around them… it seemed like such a waste of energy to him. Might as well let a little steam off all the time, then forget it even happened, was _his_ philosophy. "Don't you think so, Mal?"

There was no answer, and Trip turned to look at Mal on the higher roof. The other man was _staring_. It wasn't his, _Trip, you're about to get a life-threatening splinter_ stare; more like the _shiny, fast-moving object I want to chase_ stare. Trip smirked. "What're you lookin' at, buddy?"

Mal didn't respond, which Trip was not surprised by. Instead the other man dropped his decorations and started scrambling across the roof tiles in dogged pursuit of something Trip couldn't see, culminating in Mal racing right off the roof. There were some surprised shouts from those around them but Trip wasn't worried; he'd seen Mal do that a dozen times in Engineering. Sure enough, a moment later the other man popped up in Trip's vision on the lawn, shooting across the grass with the McCaffrey children in joyful screaming pursuit.

It was when Mal started dancing around with his hands clasped together above his head shouting, "I caught it! I caught it! Trip, come look what I caught!" that Trip really became nervous.

_You better not have killed that thing!_ he thought fiercely, sliding down the ladder to the ground. _Not in front of those kids!_

Mal was kneeling on the lawn when Trip reached him, the three children crowded around him. Trip pushed his way through and dropped down in front of Mal, looking him sternly in the eye. "What'd you catch?"

"It's a _lizard_ ," Mal revealed dramatically. Slowly he pulled one hand away, uncovering a small green lizard sitting in the palm of his other hand, motionless but apparently unharmed. Trip tried not to be too obvious in his relief.

"Can we touch it?" prompted Emmaline eagerly, but Mal held up his hand to stop them.

"He's very frightened right now," Mal whispered. "He doesn't know I'm his friend yet." Very gently and slowly, Mal reached a finger towards the small lizard and stroked its back. After a few moments of this the lizard seemed less likely to bolt and Trip grinned.

"Good job there, buddy," he complimented.

"Can we pet it _now_?" Connery whispered loudly.

"I asked first, so I get to pet it first!" Emmaline asserted, jostling him.

"None of you shall pet him if you can't be _quiet_ ," Mal warned. "He's quite sensitive, you know."

Carefully, and under strict supervision from Mal, the children and Trip were allowed to pet the lizard. "We used to catch these things all the time when I was a kid," Trip told them. "Or try to, anyway. We weren't near as fast as Mal here."

"Oh Trip, he's _so_ pretty!" Mal sighed. "Can we take him back to _Enterprise_ and keep him forever and ever, please? _Please_?"

"Sorry, buddy." Trip shook his head regretfully. "Don't think we can do that."

"Why not?"

"He's a wild thing, Mal," Trip explained to him. "Wild things belong in nature, not in a cage." That was what Pop had always told _him_ when he wanted to bring home some forest creature.

"That's silly," Mal declared. "If I were a wild thing I would be _glad_ if someone took me home where it was safe and warm with plenty of food." Trip frowned—why hadn't _he_ ever thought of that argument? "Anyway, the people in Xenozoology do it all the time."

"Well, you're not a xenozoologist, and we're not bringin' a live animal on board," Trip told him firmly.

"But—"

"No."

"What's going on over here?" asked a suspicious voice. Trip had been wondering when Katie would notice the knot of her children and come to investigate.

"Mal caught a lizard, Mum!" Connery announced.

"We all got to pet it!" added Emmaline.

Seeing Katie's eyes widen Trip hastened to assure her, "It's just one of those little house geckos."

"Well, I hope you're all going to wash your hands," was Katie's response.

Mal sighed, seeing the resolute look in Trip's eyes. "I suppose I should let Scrabble-Green-Lizard-Earth-Applesauce-Trip go, then."

"What?" asked one of the children.

Trip tried to look solemn. "I think that would be best."

Mal set the small lizard gently on the grass and watched it scamper away. "Good-bye, Scrabble-Green-Lizard-Earth-Applesauce-Trip."

"Good-bye," the children parroted soberly.

           

At last the final transport pulled into the driveway. “Lives the closest, but he’s the last to get here,” Trip pointed out with a smile.

“Oh, they’ve probably been over at Elaine’s folks,” Ma explained. “Now don’t you give your brother a hard time, he’s been real helpful to me and your father.”

“What? I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, Ma,” Trip protested. “Give Eddie a hard time… Hey, Mal, hide behind the door, would ya? Then jump out and yell when I give you the signal, okay?”

“Don’t you dare!” Ma objected, glaring at her older son. “Honestly, sometimes I think bein’ in this house makes you revert to childhood mentalities… And what if he’s carryin’ the baby, hmm?”

“Oh yeah, I forgot about that,” Trip agreed regretfully. “Cancel that, Mal.”

Elaine came in first, as it turned out, carrying a pink bundle against her shoulder. Eddie followed, carrying a brown and white bundle which he set down on the floor. Amazingly—from Mal’s point of view, anyway—the large bundle sprouted legs and ambled off. Mal followed it out of the room, fascinated.

Trip embraced his brother first, then his sister-in-law. But the real attraction was, of course, the pink bundle. “Come here, little bug,” Trip cooed, taking the baby from Elaine. “Come meet your Uncle Trip!” The baby blinked her eyes open and yawned, her fat pink tongue filling her mouth. Trip melted. “Aren’t you just the _sweetest_ thing? But don’t you worry, I’m gonna teach you all kinds of bad habits to worry your folks with.”

Elaine snorted. “Between my family and yours, you’ll have to get in line.”

Trip took in the baby’s cocoa-colored skin, dark eyes, and curly hair. “D—n glad she takes after you, Elaine,” he commented with a grin. “No offense, Eddie.”

“None taken,” Eddie assured him, and meant it. Trip appreciated having a sibling you could say that kind of thing to, without worrying that they’d get mad. Unlike certain _other_ siblings.

Meanwhile, Mal had tracked the large, chunky object into the living room. Blue looked up from his spot beside the fireplace, and he and the big lumpy thing exchanged casual sniffs of greeting before the newcomer plopped down near the warmth as well. Was it possible this strange creature was _also_ a dog, Mal wondered. Its body was long like Blue’s, but its legs were short and stubby; in fact Mal had been concerned that it might step on its own long, floppy ears as it walked. If those were, in fact, ears. Mal knelt beside the creature to examine it more closely.

“Hello there,” said a voice behind him. Eddie dropped to the floor near the fireplace as well. “I guess you’re Mal, huh?”

Taken on his own, Eddie was quite pleasant-looking, really, but rarely in his life had he ever, in fact, been taken on his own. The two Tucker boys actually looked remarkably alike; there was no way either could deny relation to the other. But to Mal—and to everyone else who knew the elder brother first—Eddie resembled a skinnier version of Trip that had been left out in the rain all night and become rather pale and soggy. Fortunately Eddie had grown accustomed to this reaction.

Mal looked him over, then decided to ask the question that was burning in his mind. “What kind of creature is this?”

“Oh, this is Gigolo Joe!” Eddie replied proudly, scratching the animal behind its ears.

“Gigolo Joe?” Mal repeated dubiously.

“Yeah, he’s named after a character in an old sci-fi movie Trip and I used to watch all the time,” Eddie explained, though it brought little clarity to Mal.

“Is he a dog?”

“Yeah, a basset hound.”

“Isn’t he going to lick me?” Mal persisted, wrinkling his nose in advance of his displeasure.

Eddie looked slightly apologetic as he continued to rub the dog’s head. “No, sorry, probably not. He’s pretty old now, and not very friendly anymore.”

“Oh.” Mal decided he was relieved at this news.

“But he can do a trick,” Eddie went on, obviously fearing that Gigolo Joe was a bit of a disappointment.

“Really?” Most of the dogs Mal had met didn’t seem to know any tricks—let alone basics like _stop_ or _stay_.

“Yeah. You wanna see?” Mal nodded eagerly. Eddie faced the dog and said in a firm voice, “Hey Joe, what do you know?” A high-pitched, squelchy sound was emitted from the general direction of Gigolo Joe’s tail, along with a pungent, slightly sulfurous smell. “Oh, you’re such a good dog!” Eddie rewarded heartily, rubbing behind his ears again.

Mal blinked. “Gigolo Joe’s trick is to…” What was the polite term he was supposed to use? “…pass gas on command?”

“Well yeah,” Eddie agreed. “Pop taught it to him. He used to know other tricks, but that’s the only one he’s got left, isn’t it, boy?”

Mal stared at the dog. “He is so smart,” he decided after a moment of thought. “He is certainly the cleverest dog I’ve met yet.” Eddie gave him a once-over, trying to determine if Mal was being sarcastic, but he detected nothing of the kind.

A dreadfully familiar yipping filled the air and two pairs of small, overly energetic dogs bounded into the room, seeking out the newest canine visitor. “No, no, go away—“ Eddie tried, but he could only grab so many little dogs at a time.

One of the naughty little dachshunds leaped over Eddie’s grasping hand, stepped on Gigolo Joe’s front paw, and nipped at the larger dog’s ear. Mal found this behavior unnecessarily rude. So did Eddie, apparently. “Stop that! He’s old, he doesn’t need you bothering him—“

“Oh, go away, go away!” Mal tried, shoving at the furry swarm ineffectively.

Having taken enough abuse, Gigolo Joe pushed himself up on his front paws and gave a deep, chastising woof. The four little dogs yipped even faster, obviously alarmed, and fled the scene. The old basset hound then settled back down, trading the doggy equivalent of eye rolls over the younger generation with Blue.

“Good boy,” Eddie soothed, petting him. “You show those little yappers who’s boss.”

Mal was more exuberant with his praise. “Oh, Gigolo Joe!” he exclaimed, throwing his arms around the dog (gently, of course). “How wonderful you are! You made the little dogs go away!” He paused to assess. “I’m afraid you still smell like a dog, however.”

“Oh my G-d, Mal’s touching a dog!” Trip deadpanned, walking into the scene.

“Have you met Gigolo Joe?” Mal introduced excitedly.

“Well sure I have,” Trip pointed out, reaching down to scratch the dog’s head. “How you doin’, old Joe?” A glint appeared in Trip’s eyes. “Hey Joe, what—“

Eddie nudged him. “Already showed Mal that trick. Don’t want to tax Joe too much, you know.”

“He is _so_ smart,” Mal repeated to Trip earnestly.

“Is that so?” Trip smirked.

"You comin' to dinner, or should we eat your shares?" Pop hollered through the house, summoning the Tucker clan to the evening meal.

Eddie met his younger sister in the hallway, where she was cradling one of her no doubt traumatized dachshunds. The other yipped plaintively at her feet. "Your little creatures were bothering Gigolo Joe again," he accused, giving her a greeting kiss on the cheek.

"They aren't _creatures_ ," Lizzie protested, cuddling the twitchy dog to the cheek Eddie had just kissed. "They're my ittle wittle babies, aren't you? Aren't you just?" she cooed. Eddie rolled his eyes and Mal looked slightly frightened. "Was Uncle Eddie being mean to you, snuggly snookums ookums?"

"Please, Lizzie, we're gonna lose our appetites," warned Trip.

"All dogs are to leave during dinner!" Ma reminded sharply.

Lizzie sighed dramatically but set her dog down on the floor, where it was herded away with the Westies and Blue. "Why doesn't Joe have to leave?" she noticed, as the basset hound continued to snooze beside the fireplace, now the house's sole remaining canine.

Eddie blinked at her in surprise. "Well—he's old," he explained. "He's not gonna bother us at the table. He's just gonna sit there by the heater." Lizzie looked like she was going to make a fuss over it, not because she really cared but because she just wanted to make a fuss, so Eddie decided to head her off by invoking the ultimate authority. "That's okay, isn't it, Ma? I can move him if you want…" Lizzie glared at her brother, the only one in the family who had mastered the art of compromise.

"Oh, don't bother old Joe," Ma instructed, bustling around the dining room. "He'll be fine where he is." Eddie didn't even give Lizzie the satisfaction of smirking at her.

"Did you wash your hands?" Trip asked of Mal as they assembled in the dining room. "'Cause, you know, you were _touching a dog_."

Mal gave him a look. "Of course I did." Trip just shook his head. Mal was staring pensively at the dining room table, which had been expanded to its fullest extent and was covered with place settings. "You shall sit _here_ , I think," Mal predicted, indicating one seat, "so I shall sit _here_." He started to remove the chair from the table.

Trip stopped him. "Let's hold off rearrangin' the furniture for a bit," he suggested quietly.

Mal stared at him. "But—erm—well, I can't sit—"

"I know, I know," Trip agreed. "But there's more people around, let's wait 'til things get settled first. Don't want people trippin' over you, after all."

Mal looked somewhat uncomfortable with this idea but nonetheless conceded. "What's that funny little chair over there for?" he asked, to distract himself.

"Oh, that's the high chair for Astraia," Trip explained. "Eddie's baby? Oh that's right, you didn't see her." He glanced around the room and spotted Elaine holding the pink bundle, minus a few layers. "Come on. Hey, Elaine, this is Mal," Trip introduced. "Mal, this is Elaine, Eddie's wife."

"Hello, Mal," Elaine greeted politely. "How do you do?"

Mal had never understood that question. But Trip had convinced him that answers like, "How do I do _what_?" and even, "I do quite well" were not appropriate responses. "Fine, thank you," Mal replied to her, following the standard formula even if he found it nonsensical.

"And this is my niece, Astraia," Trip went on, his voice changing to a strange cooing tone. Elaine obligingly turned the pink bundle to face them and Mal's eyes widened as the small, blobby creature began to twitch and squirm. "Aren't you just the cutest snookum ookums _ever_?" Mal gave Trip a wary glance, wondering what sort of power this creature exuded over his friend.

"Would you like to hold her, Mal?" Elaine offered generously.

Now it was Trip's turn to look slightly alarmed. "Um, maybe _after_ supper would be—"

"No, thank you," Mal responded cordially. "I've just washed my hands."

"Okay," Elaine agreed, confused.

"Alright, everyone, gather 'round," Pop announced. The conversations quieted and people began to join hands.

"Ooh, we're going to _pray_ now," Mal whispered to Trip, proud that he now understood, at least somewhat, what was going on, thanks to the other man's explanation the previous evening.

"That's right," Trip replied in a hushed tone. "So _shhh_." Mal nodded eagerly, then dropped to his knees to be more comfortable. Elaine, who was on Mal's other side, gave Trip a look. "Very devout," Trip assured her.

Mal popped back up when the _Amen_ had been said. "Does praying first make the food taste better, do you think?" he asked Trip.

"Unfortunately not," the other man answered dryly.

"Alright, grab a plate!" Ma ordered the crowd. "Drinks are by the sink."

"Trip, there's no food on the table," Mal observed suddenly, clutching Trip's arm.

"Uh, no, the food's in the kitchen," the engineer began, picking up a plate from the table.

Mal refused to take the plate Trip offered him. "I don't understand. Are we back to using the procedure from Tuesday, where we take the plates from the kitchen to the table, then _back_ to the kitchen for food, then _back_ to the table?"

"Well, kinda—"

"But _you_ said that was only done when there were a few people who were going to eat the same thing. Even though we _didn't_ eat the same thing," Mal protested worriedly. "But tonight there's even _more_ people than last night, and last night we used the procedure where the food was on the table—"

"Tonight we're doing something different," Trip cut in, trying to be patient. They were already gonna be two of the last in line at this rate—Tuckers tended to stampede a bit when they smelled food. "It's called a _buffet_."

"Boo-fay?" Mal repeated, mystified.

"Yes," Trip agreed. "All the food is set up in one place, like the island in the kitchen, and people walk by it, in line, with their plates, getting the food they want."

"It sounds very complicated," Mal hedged.

"It's not," Trip assured him. He pressed the plate into Mal's hands. "Come on."

"What do we do when we finally have the food on our plates?" Mal persisted, trailing Trip around the table.

"We come back here and sit down."

"Do we have to sit at the same place the plate was taken from? Oh no! I didn't see where you took my plate from, Trip!"

"Calm down there, buddy," Trip told him. "No, you don't have to sit in the same place."

"Oh. But," Mal went on, still anxious, "if no one has to sit anywhere in particular, what if when we finally get our food the only empty seats are _apart_ from each other? What if _we can't sit together_ , Trip?!"

"Would you stop?" Trip hissed at him as they entered the kitchen. "We're gonna sit together, don't worry about that. But geez, we'd still be in the same room and all."

Amazingly, they did _not_ end up at the very back of the line. But Trip soon realized that was probably _not_ a good thing. "What are these blobby off-white chunks?" Mal asked in an indiscreet whisper.

"That's creamed corn," Lizzie answered, before Trip could. "I made it!"

"Would I like creamed corn?" Mal debated, open to input from Trip. "I like corn _bread_ , and sometimes vegetable soup has corn in it, which is fine, _but_ I don't like corn on the cob, because the corn gets stuck in my teeth. Do you think creamed corn would get stuck in my teeth, Trip? And what about this cream business? Doesn't cream come from milk? I can't have milk, Trip! You _said_ I can't have milk!"

"Mal gets drunk on milk, and ice cream!" Connery helpfully told the room at large.

"What happens when you drink a lot of beer, or whiskey or something?" Eddie inquired curiously.

"Nothing," Mal shrugged. "Except I have to go to the bathroom a lot."

"Mal, put the creamed corn on your plate and move on!" Trip told him. "You're holding up the line."

"Oh, well, alright," Mal conceded. Then, "Oh, I forgot to get some of the green and brown stuff back there!"

"The what?" Trip asked in exasperation.

Mal turned to face him, plate in hand. "You know, that slightly slimy-looking green and brown stuff back there. I meant to get some, as it was quite good last night—"

"Are you referring to my spinach-artichoke dip?" Katie asked icily.

"I don't know," Mal admitted, still standing in place. "Possibly."

"Um, he said it was good," Trip reminded her. Then he nudged the man in front of him. "Mal, you missed it, keep walking."

"But I want some of the slimy-looking green and brown stuff!" he protested, and Trip could hear the whine starting in his voice. "I just forgot to get some because I was thinking about how we might not get to sit together!"

"Mal!" Trip interrupted, trying to be soothing even though he _definitely_ didn't feel that way. "You can get some of the slimy—" Katie gave him a look. "—er, some of the spinach-artichoke dip at the end, when we can go back around. You just can't go backwards at a buffet. You have to keep going forwards, because people are waiting behind you."

"This is such a _totalitarian_ method of obtaining food," Mal grumbled, turning around.

Trip patted his back, hoping Mal was at last getting the hang of this. "Absolutely, buddy."

Moments later. "Scalloped potatoes? Aren't scallops seafood? I can't have seafood!"

"No, no, it's just cheese and things like that," Elaine assured him. "No seafood."

Mal still hesitated with his hand half-reaching for the potatoes. "Well, do you want some or not?" Trip prodded.

"Well, it's just—I mean, I already have—But then I guess—" Mal looked from his plate to the bowl and back again, several times. "Oh, I just don't know!" he finally exclaimed. "It's too much pressure! I can't decide, and everyone's _waiting_ —"

Trip sighed and pulled Mal out of line. "Okay, we'll just wait until the end, buddy, it's not a big deal."

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Trip!" Mal whispered in defeat. He tried to hug the other man but the half-filled plates of food they were each holding frustrated him.

"Here, let's just set these down"—Trip put their plates on the counter near the stove—"and come on." He led Mal away from the noisy food area and into the living room, where there was only Gigolo Joe to give them a dismissive snort. "Come here, sit down." Well, actually, Trip sat down on the couch and Mal knelt at his feet, partially on his lap.

"I'm so sorry, Trip!" he repeated miserably. "I don't understand how a buffet works, and I've held everyone else up!"

"Don't forget that you insulted several people's cooking," Trip added, hoping to inject a touch of humor.

He should have known better, as Mal let out a wail of despair that Trip was certain would have half the house running in to check on them. "There's just too many people, and too many dogs!" Mal decided, burying his face against Trip's stomach. "Except you, of course, Gigolo Joe," he added out of fairness. "You're very nice and clever."

"Shh, shh, shh, calm down," Trip encouraged, running his hands through Mal's hair. "It's okay. Everything's alright."

"It's _not_ alright," Mal asserted unhappily. "We haven't any food, and everyone thinks I'm _weird_!"

Trip couldn't help but smile at that. "Well, we're gonna get you some food pretty soon, I promise," he replied. "And everyone _already_ thought you were weird, so that's not a big deal. They like you anyway."

Mal sniffed and looked up at him. "Do you really think they like me?"

"I _know_ they do, baby," Trip assured him. "They _love_ you. Even the ones who don't quite know it yet."

Mal put his head back down on Trip's lap and tried not to think too much about his last statement. Sometimes the things Trip said were confusing to Mal, though Mal was certain that was just because he wasn't wise enough to understand them. The sentiment behind them was clear enough anyway, and Mal took comfort in that.

Small footsteps—though not dog-small—echoed down the hall. "Mal!" called Annabel, searching for him through the house. She spotted her uncle in the living room and trotted over, wings bobbing. "Mal! There you are! Aren't you going to come back and have dinner with us?"

"See there, buddy? They missed you," Trip pointed out.

"I don't know," Mal hesitated. "I feel a bit embarrassed now… Perhaps I could just eat upstairs?"

Annabel tugged on Mal's hand. "Come on, Mal. It's okay. This one time, we were at a restaurant, and I sneezed _all over all the food_! So that's worse, you see?"

"That _is_ rather disgusting," Mal agreed. "You didn't do that here, did you?"

Annabel giggled. "No, of course not! That was when I was real little!"

"About Mal's age, maybe?" Trip teased lightly.

"So come on, Mal!" the little girl persisted. "Come and have dinner!"

"How 'bout it, buddy?"

"Well… I suppose it's alright," Mal decided slowly.

"Hooray!" whooped Annabel.

The two men stood and headed back towards the dining room. "You go on back to the table, Annabel," Trip instructed. "Mal and I have to finish filling our plates."

"Okay!"

The plates were right where they'd left them, and this time Mal was able to choose food at his leisure, going back for things he'd missed, asking Trip questions. "It's somewhat like when there's a party in the Mess Hall, isn't it?" he suggested. "And all the food is laid out on a table for people to browse through."

"Eh, sorta," replied Trip thoughtfully. "Except you're supposed to move through a buffet in an orderly line, not jump around."

"Oh."

Finally they were ready to enter the dining room. Trip was afraid Mal would come over all shy again, but he seemed in good spirits now and swept into the room behind Trip as though they were alone. Trip was pleased to see that two empty seats had been left—together—and that one had the chair already pulled away. Trip nudged the other man to point it out. Mal smiled pleasantly and let himself gracefully down to the floor, where Trip handed him his placemat, napkin, and silverware once he got settled.

"See, I _told_ you I would make him come back," Annabel remarked to some skeptic.

Conversation continued as usual around the table, which in the case of a full gathering of Tuckers meant raised voices, overlapping conversations, interrupted thoughts, and a certain amount of general confusion. Trip loved it. He loved being able to find a pattern in the seeming chaos, to keep three different conversations going at the same time, to remember where he'd left off when someone had to turn away to deal with an errant child, while at the same time managing to appreciate the food he was eating _and_ keep an eye on Mal. It was just the right sort of challenge—not so difficult that he was frustrated or struggling, but just tricky enough to make him feel quite satisfied when he did it well.

Meanwhile, Mal—who did _not_ handle noise or multitasking nearly as well as Trip—was able to sit quietly on the floor, out of direct sight from most people, basking in Trip's enjoyment but not being forced to keep up with it. Instead he could focus on other matters, like thoroughly examining the new foods on his plate—he made sure to scan them each several times with the instrument Dr. Phlox had loaned him, to check for forbidden ingredients. He could also investigate the phenomenon of the Astraia in the special chair, which happened to be placed right across the table from him.

This Astraia couldn't feed itself, apparently, or perhaps it just didn't _want_ to; Eddie and Elaine flanked it, taking turns scooping up special food from a little dish and poking it into the creature's mouth. At first Mal didn't even realize they were attempting to feed it, since so much of what went _in_ seemed to quickly ooze back _out_ , dribbling down the creature's face in a rather nauseating but morbidly fascinating display. Also this Astraia seemed to enjoy smearing said food—both before and after initial consumption—onto its hands, then wiping the residue on every available surface, including the special chair, its clothing, its caretakers, and its own hair. To be quite honest Mal could see the appeal in such complete freedom; however, he couldn't imagine Trip ever condoning such behavior from _him_ , and anyway after a few minutes he would be overwhelmed with the desire to wash up. If the Astraia felt such a need, it certainly did not display it.

After supper Mal followed Trip upstairs to retrieve something from his luggage to show to Lizzie. "I've been doing quite a lot of thinking," he declared to Trip.

"That can't be good," Trip said in return. Mal ignored this.

"I've been thinking about your family, and how nice they are."

"Really?" Trip began digging through his suitcase. "Well, I'm glad to hear that. You know, they're _your_ family, too."

Mal sat down on the edge of the bed patiently. "Well, that's exactly what I've been thinking about. I'm sure not _every_ human family would be so eager to have an alien as a member."

Trip shrugged noncommittally and checked the outer pockets of the suitcase. "Well, there's thousands of aliens on Earth now, you know. Won't be long until some of them start marryin' into human families. Guess anyone who's got a problem with it will just have to get over it."

"But I think it's nice that _your_ family has gotten a head start on this," Mal continued. Unable to find what he was looking for, Trip moved on to a different bag. "You already _have_ non-humans in your family, after all."

Trip looked up at this statement. "Um… what do you mean by that?"

"Well, Annabel, for example," Mal pointed out. "She's a fairy."

Trip's lips twitched as he went back to his digging. "Um, Annabel's not _really_ a fairy, Mal. She's a human little girl. She's just _pretending_ to be a fairy at the moment."

"Hmmm." It wasn't that Mal didn't _believe_ Trip. He believed that _Trip_ believed. But that wasn't the same as it being _true_. But he decided to gloss over that point. "Well, you also have a lot of dogs in your family."

"Now _that_ is absolutely correct," Trip agreed. He stood, looked around, and headed over to the closet in his search. "Tuckers _are_ dog people."

 "I mean, you carry the dogs around, refer to them as children with familial relationships like nieces and nephews, take them on trips, let them use the furniture—"

"Wait'll you get to Granny's house tomorrow," Trip smirked, poking through the closet. "You'll see Tuckers who even put _clothes_ on their dogs."

"Oh, like Eddie and Elaine do," Mal remarked.

Trip frowned at him, distracted by his search. "What? I don't remember them ever dressing up Gigolo Joe."

"No, I mean the Astraia, the one Ma let eat at the table."

Trip paused and then turned around slowly. "Um… what?"

"Well, I _thought_ it was clothing, anyway," Mal hedged, gauging Trip's expression. "I suppose it might have been fur. I've never seen a dog with pink fur, but then again I haven't seen many dogs—"

"Are you kidding?" Trip asked, truly curious. Sometimes he couldn't tell.

Mal became a bit hesitant. "Um… should I be?"

Trip decided that was a _no_ , as bizarre as that seemed. "Astraia is a baby, Mal."

"A baby… dog?"

"A baby _human_."

"Oh." Mal frowned.

Trip struggled to keep his expression and voice neutral. "You really thought she was a dog."

Mal could tell how much he wanted to burst into laughter. "Well—you spoke to her in the same voice Lizzie used with _her_ dogs. And Lizzie said Eddie was her dogs' uncle. Um… the little creatures Lizzie has _are_ dogs, aren't they?"

"Yes, Oscar and Schnitzel are dogs," Trip replied patiently, sounding only slightly choked.

Mal became more defensive. "And the Astraia doesn't _look_ very much like a human! But all the dogs look quite different from each other, so I thought she was just a different sort. And remember when Elaine picked her up and sniffed her behind? That's just what the dogs do!"

Trip nodded quickly. "Yes, that's perfectly understandable." Followed by biting his lip.

"And I thought maybe she was a _special_ dog, because Ma let her eat at the table, just like she let Gigolo Joe stay in the house during dinner because he's old! I thought maybe it was because the Astraia was just a baby dog. Or old or sick or something." Mal began to pout. "I've never seen a human baby after all!"

"You are absolutely right," Trip told him. "It's very confusing. An… extremely… reasonable… mistake."

Mal narrowed his eyes at Trip, knowing that Trip was laughing at him inside. Laughing quite hard, in fact. He reached down to the first suitcase Trip had searched through and snatched something from the front pocket. "Here's the data pad you were looking for," he said shortly.

Trip instantly frowned. "I already looked there."

"Obviously you didn't look thoroughly enough."

"Why didn't you say anything, if you knew where it was?" Trip asked, taking the device from him. Mal just gave him a look. Trip shook his head. "Come on, buddy, let's go back downstairs. You are fun to have around, you know?" Mal snorted in response to that.

"Lizzie Lou, check this out," Trip announced a moment later, presenting his sister with the data pad with a flourish. "Pictures of some of the alien buildings we've seen. Thought you might be interested."

"Cool!" Lizzie exclaimed, taking the data pad from him.

"Hey, Eddie!" Trip went on, searching out his brother. "Wait until you hear what Mal thought!" Mal sensibly remained around the corner, where the children had caught up to him wanting to play.

Fortunately Eddie didn't take offense to Mal thinking his daughter was a dog. Elaine appeared less than impressed, though it elicited little more than an eye roll. Trip prudently decided to leave out the part about Annabel being a _real_ fairy, since he had a feeling Katie would be _completely_ unamused.

"You stop teasin' Mal about that, Trip," Ma instructed when she caught wind of it. "It's an honest mistake."

"Aw, Ma, you shoulda _seen_ how good I was when he first told me!" Trip protested. "I didn't even laugh!"

"Well, you can just quit spreadin' it," Ma decided. "Poor boy's had enough excitement for one evening."

As if on cue Mal sauntered in and curled up at Trip's feet. "Hey there, buddy," Trip greeted, extra attentive just in case his feelings _had_ been hurt. "Thought I heard you runnin' off with the kids."

"They want to play in the pool again," Mal sighed forlornly. "They went to ask Katie for permission." He got up suddenly and crawled over to the fireplace. "Hey Joe, what do you know?" he said the old basset hound. There was a squelchy sound, then Mal rubbed the dog's head. "What a smart dog! Smart dog!"

Whines from the other room seemed to indicate the children had been denied. "It hasn't been half an hour since dinner," Ma pointed out knowingly.

But as it turned out, Ma was incorrect in her reasoning (a rare occurrence). Katie marched into the room with a purposeful look on her face. "I was thinking, since it's Christmas Eve, maybe we could all go to church together."

"Um—" Trip began to object.

"We're all together for the first time in years, and who knows how long it will be until that happens again?" Katie pressed. "I would really like us to all go to church together. We can even go to the Presbyterian one."

"I would like to do that," Ma agreed slowly, and everyone else knew it would do no good to protest. Not that anyone else necessarily _had_ strong objections, it was just that—

"I didn't bring a suit, Ma," Trip pointed out.

Mal was starting to twitch and climb on Trip. "What's going on? What are we doing?" Trip shushed him.

"Yeah, I don't have one either," Eddie added. "Although I guess it wouldn't take long to run home…"

"Trip, you can wear one of your father's old suits," Ma decided, and he sighed in defeat. "Eddie, you can wear one of Trip's. And Mal can wear one of Eddie's."

"Don't you ever throw anything away, Ma?" Trip asked. "What possible use could me and Eddie's old suits be?"

"Seems like they're about to come in real handy to me," Ma shot back.

Eddie grinned and nudged his wife. "Maybe Ma's got a dress she could lend you."

Elaine narrowed her eyes at him. "Although that would be very nice of her," she replied tactfully, "I actually _did_ bring a dress I can wear."

"Well, we'd better start getting ready," Katie prompted. "The early service begins in about forty-five minutes."

Bustling commenced immediately, breaking the usual post-dinner lethargy. "Lizzie, what have you got to wear?" Ma inquired, as those whose wardrobes had already been determined hurried off. "And how about Steve here?"

"Trip, I don't understand!" Mal hissed, clutching the other man's arm when he tried to head upstairs. "What will happen at _church_? Isn't church where Jesus lives? Does Jesus like Viridians?"

"Um, well, I don't think He'd be Jesus if He didn't," Trip decided. He glanced around distractedly and saw a book lying on the couch. "Hey, uh…" Who had he seen with it earlier? "…Emmaline, can Mal borrow your _Bible for Kids_ for a bit?"

"Sure, I guess," she allowed, before her mother swept her upstairs.

Trip grabbed the book and pushed it on Mal. "Read this while we're gettin' ready. Come on."

Suits were brought out of storage and distributed, not looking too much the worse for it. Of course, Mal had never really seen a suit before. "What are these—buttons on the shirt?" he asked with some alarm.

Trip was already stripping and freshening up in their bathroom. "Mal, they're _buttons_ , I have them on some of my civvies. Don't be difficult."

"I'm _not_ being difficult, I've just never _worn_ anything with so many buttons—won't they let in a terrible draft?"

"Not if the shirt fits!"

Mal attempted to fulfill all of his mandates simultaneously—reading the children's Bible, getting dressed, and helping Trip dress. Needless to say, confusion ensued. "These buttons are so complicated!" he complained.

"They're _not_ , just let me—"

"They don't fit in the holes, Trip! The holes aren't big enough!"

"It's designed that way, Mal, so the button doesn't slip back out!"

Mal reach the bottom of Trip's shirt. "Why do you have an extra button here?" he asked suspiciously.

"I don't know," Trip shrugged without concern. "Sometimes they give you an extra in case—" He sighed as he caught sight of his reflection and began undoing the buttons.

"What is it? What have I done wrong?"

"It's fine, it's fine," Trip tried to assure him. "It's just—you have to make sure the buttons are lined up with the right holes first—"

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" Mal exclaimed with distress. "Here, I can fix it—"

His fingers tangled with Trip's as he reached in, attempting to redo the buttons. "Mal, would you just—" Trip grabbed the other man's wrists and took a deep breath. "Mal, buddy. I can do the buttons myself. You just get dressed, okay?" Mal nodded regretfully and turned away.

"Okay," Trip announced a few minutes later, "I think we're just about ready." He dug through one of the small drawers in the bureau. "I think Ma left my old ties here—oh, here they are. Let's just stick with black for now, okay? Here you go."

Mal took the long, skinny piece of fabric from Trip and gazed at it dubiously. "What's this for?"

"It goes around your neck, under the collar of your shirt," Trip explained, sliding his into place. He paused, staring blankly at his reflection in the mirror. "Hey, Mal, I suppose there's no chance you know how to tie one of these, is there?"

"Does it have to be tied in a particular way?"

"Um, yeah," Trip admitted. "But don't worry, we'll get—"

Too late. Mal was already gasping in horror. "No! I don't know how to tie it! I don't even know what it's called! I'm so sorry, Trip!"

"Buddy, don't worry about it," Trip repeated. "We'll get Ma to tie them. Come on." He took Mal's hand and led him out of the bedroom. "And they're called _ties_ , by the way."

"Oh, Trip, this is all so strange," Mal protested unhappily. "I don't understand at all!"

"You're gonna be fine, buddy, I promise," Trip said, giving him a reassuring smile. "Now come on, let's get our ties tied."

"Oh, dear," Mal muttered.

"Ma!" Trip hollered as they reached the foot of the stairs. "Can you tie our ties?"

"Honestly, why is it that men never know how to do these things?" Katie asked rhetorically, approaching from the living room.

Trip had no intention of letting his older sister anywhere near his neck with a tightly knotted piece of cloth, so he quickly dodged into the kitchen with Mal in tow. "Well, don't you two look handsome," Ma remarked, turning away from her last-minute tidying. "Nothing like a suit to make a fella look like a gentleman."

"Yeah, well…" Trip shrugged, mildly embarrassed. "It fits pretty well, I guess. Don't know if I should be glad or worried about that."

"Hush, you," Ma ordered. "C'mere and let me do your tie."

"Please go slowly, Ma," Mal requested, sticking his head into the rather small area of activity. "I _must_ learn this."

Ma worked her magic with Trip's tie, then did the same for Mal's. "There now, that looks very nice," she decided. She glanced at the chrono. "I'd better go see what's taking your father. I hope he didn't start watching the comm and forget to get dressed."

Eddie came in one door as Ma exited the other. "Hey, have you seen Ma? I need her to do my tie."

"She just left," Trip reported. "Can't Elaine do it?"

"Apparently not."

"Hey, Mal, why don't you practice on Eddie's tie?" Trip suggested.

"I don't know," Mal hedged uncomfortably. "I'm sure I shall do it incorrectly." He squirmed around the kitchen. "Oh, Trip, I feel _strange_! These clothes are so _funny_! I don't like them! No offense, Eddie," he added quickly.

"None taken," Eddie assured him. "I never really liked that suit either."

"And I don't understand what _church_ will be like, or what will happen there!" Mal went on, returning to his histrionics. He held up the children's Bible. "There's nothing in this book about Viridians, or even aliens! What if Jesus doesn't like me? What if He's mad at me for coming into His house and uses His superpowers to attack me?"

Trip held up his hands, trying to stem the tide. "Mal. Mal! Just calm down, okay, buddy?" He looked the other man over. "Get down on your knees a minute." Mal did so immediately and Trip reached for the sink. "I'm just gonna put a little water on your head."

"Are you going to baptize me?" Mal inquired curiously.

Trip blinked at him, cupping a small handful of water. "Uh, no. I'm just gonna wet your hair down a little and comb it."

"Oh, okay."

Trip shared a look with Eddie over Mal's head and rolled his eyes a bit. "You got a comb on you, Eddie?"

"Oddly enough, yes," his brother replied, handing the instrument over. "I'm gonna go look for Ma."

"Watch out for Katie," Trip warned. "She's on the lookout for people to strangle."

Mal knelt quietly while Trip combed his hair straight down. It wasn't strictly necessary for church attendance, of course, but the grooming seemed to calm Mal a bit. "Now listen, I'll tell you what church is gonna be like," Trip promised. "It's gonna be a big room with lots of benches in it for people to sit on. They're called _pews_ , by the way." He waited for Mal to get the giggle out of his system. "The service is gonna take about an hour, hour and a half. Mostly it'll be a lot of singing—sometimes we'll sit and watch a special group of people at the front of the room sing, and sometimes everyone will stand up and sing. There's books that tell us what words to sing," he added quickly, sensing Mal's objection. "Sometimes we're gonna pray, too, and everyone will be sitting quietly while the person in charge—the minister—says the prayer, like Pop does when we pray before eating."

"Will there be food at church?" Mal wanted to know.

"No," Trip replied, much to the other man's disappointment. "No food. They'll probably do Communion, though…" He paused, not sure how much of the detail he wanted to get into at the moment. "That's a special ceremony in which people get a _tiny_ little piece of bread to eat, and a _tiny_ little glass of grape juice. It's not really food. I'm not sure if the church we're goin' to will bring it around to the people sitting in the pews, or if we'll get up and go to the front for it. _But_ ," he added, "you shouldn't take any of it. Katie and Ian and them will just sit there quietly and not take the stuff either, so you just do what they do, okay?"

"Okay," Mal agreed in a small voice.

Trip smiled at him reassuringly and pulled him back up to his feet. "Now don't be intimidated by it, alright? There's gonna be some beautiful music, and the church is real pretty, so all you have to do is sit there quietly and do whatever Katie or I do, okay? Mostly it's just gonna be standing up or sitting down at the appropriate times. But you do have to be _quiet_ ," he emphasized, "and sit still, and save all your questions for the end when we're comin' home, okay?"

"Okay."

"Alright." Trip patted Mal's shoulder, trying to be upbeat. There were about a million ways this could go bad, but he felt like he had to trust Mal to behave himself. If he kept hovering over him, Mal almost certainly _would_ act up—which was something Trip didn't understand at all, but he had learned to accept it.

"Are we ready?" authoritative voices began calling from the front of the house. "Come on, people, let's go!"

An hour and a half later. "That was nice, wasn't it, children?" Katie remarked as they exited the church. "You were all very well-behaved." This was said mostly for the benefit of Annabel, who had thrown a little fit at home over her wings being removed prior to church attendance.

"I was well-behaved, too, wasn't I, Trip?" asked Mal anxiously, clutching the other man's hand.

"Yes, you were," Trip assured him. "And you've got a nice singing voice, too." Mal blushed pleasantly at the compliment.

"I was reading through that _Bible_ during the service," Mal went on, "and I _do_ have a few questions…"

Trip braced himself. "Okay."

"I was just wondering," Mal said, "if Santa Claus was one of the Three Wise Men."

Trip blinked at him, then looked over at the children. "Um, I thought we discussed Santa Claus before, Mal…"

"Yes, we did," Mal agreed. " _But_ , I was thinking, the Three Wise Men brought presents to Baby Jesus at Christmastime, though I suppose it wasn't Christmastime back then, and He had probably been rather good, or at least He wasn't old enough to really do anything bad yet. So I thought one of them might be Santa Claus."

"Interesting theory," Trip decided. "I think Santa Claus was originally a _different_ real person, though. Who made toys for poor children, or something like that. Hundreds of years _after_ Baby Jesus was born."

"I have another question," Mal announced, as the whole group reached their cluster of transports. "Do you think Baby Jesus was born naked?"

Trip tried to keep his face straight. "Yes, I think that very likely."

Mal seemed disappointed. "Oh. I just thought, that since God was Baby Jesus's father, He might have at least been born with some clothes on."

Katie and Ian were staring at Mal and Trip. "Well, if anyone would have, it would indeed have been Baby Jesus, don't you think?" reasoned Eddie, of all people.

"I suppose so," Katie agreed dubiously, pushing her children into a transport.

"Good luck explaining the Immaculate Conception, by the way," Eddie teased his brother.

"Oh, I understand all about _that_ ," Mal assured them. "I expect God used a box of telepathic pebbles."

"Get in the car," said Trip. "Let's not forget that _you're_ the one who would have mistaken Baby Jesus for a _dog_ not so long ago!"

 

Katie snuck down the stairs dragging two suitcases behind her. "I think they're asleep," she reported conspiratorially, and the other adults waiting in the living room sprang into action.

"I've got the wrapping paper right back here," Ma announced, pulling an upright storage container from the back of a closet.

"Mal, run upstairs and get the gifts we brought, okay?" Trip instructed. "Be real quiet, though." Mal nodded dutifully and found himself tiptoeing up the stairs with Lizzie and Elaine.

"Now the stockings are in that box up there, Eddie," Ma pointed out, gesturing to an unassuming container in a different closet. "Trip, you just go into the garage and get the box of gifts out of the corner—I've wrapped them already, just need to decorate them. Oh, it's covered with an old dog blanket."

"Great," Trip remarked sarcastically, jogging off.

"What should _I_ do?" asked Steve eagerly.

"Hmm, why don't you put on some Christmas music, dear?" Ma suggested. "But _quietly_ , we don't want to wake the kids."

Katie and Ian claimed the coffee table, beginning to surround it with gifts they'd brought for the children and carefully-concealed gifts for the adults. The two women and Mal returned with their own collections and staked out different corners of the room, where they'd be able to wrap gifts for those in the same room without giving _too_ much away. They were all mature enough by now not to peek, right? The little dogs in the room began yipping at all the excitement and were shushed, while the two larger, older dogs merely snorted and readjusted themselves by the flickering fireplace display.

"Ma, that was the _nastiest_ blanket I've ever seen," Trip complained, appearing with the box of wrapped gifts. "I feel like I need to go through Decon after touching it!" Not being in Starfleet or even the military, no one else in the room got the joke but Mal—but that was okay, as they were all too busy to pay much attention.

Mal crept over to the snoozing dogs. "Hey, Joe, what do you know?" he said to the pudgy basset hound happily. The dog twitched and a squelchy sound emanated from him. "What a smart dog!" Mal declared, giving his ears a thorough scratching by way of reward. Trip bit his lip to keep from laughing and pulled Mal back over to him.

"Now remember," Ma was saying from the center of the room as she passed out paper slicers and adhesive, "the red-and-white striped paper is the sandy paper. I've got three rolls of it. There's plenty of the other kinds, too, so just help yourselves." Ma settled onto the couch with the box of wrapped gifts at her feet, a pile of bows and ribbon beside her.

"What's sandy paper?" Mal inquired of Trip. They were facing the fireplace, backs to the rest of the room, as Trip sifted through the bags of gifts Mal had appeared with, trying to remember who each was for.

"Oh, that's the special wrapping paper used for the gifts that are supposed to be from Santa," Trip answered easily. "The other paper is for the gifts from parents or Ma and Pop or whatever." Mal blinked at him. "Well, it wouldn't make much sense for Santa to use the same kinda paper as Ma and Pop, would it?" Trip tried to explain, a bit defensively.

"This conspiracy is very well thought-out," Mal remarked coolly.

"Oh, come on," Trip chided him. "It's just a little holiday fun. Don't get all judgmental."

"It just seems a bit ridiculous to go to so much trouble to fool _children_ ," Mal opined, resorting the gifts Trip had assigned incorrectly. "Perhaps if we were trying to trick the Suliban Cabal or something—"

"The what?" Lizzie asked, being the next nearest person.

"Classified," Trip coughed to Mal.

"Sorry. Perhaps we could call them 'Santa Claus' as a code word," Mal suggested snarkily. "The initials match."

"I got the stockings, Ma," Eddie finally reported, quite some time after his mission had been given. "Does all this candy and stuff go in them?" He held out a rather full shopping bag.

"Oh, we brought a couple little things to put in the stockings, too," Katie said, digging through the pockets of a suitcase.

"I picked up a couple things, too," Lizzie added cheerfully, scrounging a handful of small objects out of the box between her and Steve.

Both sisters held the items out expectantly towards Eddie. "Hey, I don't want to stuff the stockings again this year," he protested immediately, setting the stockings and filler down in the center of the room and backing away from it.

"Well, _we_ can't do it," Katie announced quickly. "We've got all these presents to wrap."

"Maybe Steve could do it," Trip suggested innocently. Stocking stuffing was easily the most-hated Christmas duty, being a constant struggle with the laws of physics and worse, with the laws of sibling relations, to distribute all the available items fairly and fit them into the allotted space.

"Maybe _Trip_ could do it," Lizzie shot back. "He's the engineer, he ought to have good spatial reasoning skills by now."

"Well, same to you," Trip told her. "You're the architect."

"Maybe Pop could do it," Eddie tried hopefully, realizing he would be stuck with it by default if he couldn't find a replacement.

"I'm supervising," Pop insisted from his recliner as he sipped a beer.

"Um, well, I guess maybe…" Elaine began tentatively. Eddie looked at her in despair, not wanting to wrap the presents by himself. Or at all, really.

"Hey, I know," Trip cut in suddenly.

"We're not going to hide them in the yard for a scavenger hunt again," Katie warned peremptorily. "That was a _mess_."

"It was _hilarious_ ," Trip countered proudly. "But actually I was going to suggest that Mal do it."

Everyone in the room swiveled to stare at Mal, who squirmed uncomfortably. "Um, sure," he agreed quietly.

"Good," Trip told him encouragingly. "Now just go over to that pile there and start stuffing."

"Here, take these," Lizzie said, handing him some trinkets. "Now this I thought Annabel would like, and this could go to either of the girls, probably, and this is specific for Emmaline, and then I guess this could be for Connery, but really any of them might like it."

Mal nodded mutely and started to crawl towards the pile of stocking supplies. The two pairs of little dogs were sniffing at the candy avidly and were called to heel by their owners. "Oh, here, work these in if you can," Katie added, handing Mal another bag. "The pink is for Annabel, the yellow for Emmaline, and the green for Connery. They're very particular about their colors," she told him pointedly. Mal nodded quickly.

"Hey, I almost forgot," Trip said suddenly, pulling something from the bottom of his bag. He tossed three small objects, one by one, to Mal. "You can put those in, too."

"Rocks?" Mal asked, bemused.

"Hey, those are real live alien rocks from another planet," Trip protested. "The kids will love them!"

"Which planet?" Lizzie inquired curiously.

Trip waved it off even as he tried to cover the gifts Lizzie was craning her neck to see. "Some boring place you've never heard of," he asserted dismissively. "No peeking! Just say it's Vulcan or the Klingon homeworld or something."

Katie rolled her eyes. "Nice to know how important accuracy is in Starfleet."

Trip narrowed his eyes at her and opened his mouth to reply when Mal said thoughtfully, "I suppose these should go on top, then. If they're from _you_ ," he clarified to Trip, "they wouldn't be buried in the midst of items from Santa, would they?"

Trip grinned. "Way to enforce the conspiracy, Mal. Hey, Eddie," he added, "if you're going to the kitchen, bring me a beer, okay?"

Eddie hadn't been going to the kitchen. He'd been dutifully checking the gifts Elaine handed him for price codes to remove and, frankly, daydreaming about the story he was working on. But as soon as Trip threw out the request, everyone else joined in with orders, so Eddie set the box of art supplies he was holding down and wandered off to the kitchen for refreshments.

By the time he got back Mal had divided the stocking fillers into three distinct piles and was currently examining the stockings themselves with great interest. Gently he tested the seam strength of each fuzzy red bag, put his hand inside to check the available volume, and hung each on their hooks to observe the "dangle profile."

"Anytime you wanna get that done _tonight_ , Mal, would be good," Trip prompted.

"Do you have a volumetric scanner available?" Mal inquired seriously.

"Left it on the ship, sorry," Trip told him with a grin. "I've got a hypospanner and a tube of plasteel, though, in case you rip one of those."

"Hmm, hmm hmm hmm," Mal mumbled, looking over the three piles before him. "I really don't think these bags of candy are going to fit," he finally judged, regretfully.

"Don't give them the whole _bag_ ," Katie corrected. "Just give them one or two of the smaller packages _inside_ each bag." Mal nodded, enlightened, and began opening the larger bags.

"You gotta tell him these things, you know," Trip pointed out to her with some irritation. "It's not like he grew up with Christmas trees and stockings and bags of candy."

Katie started to snap something back at him but her husband intervened. "Uh, Mal? Before you get too far there…" Ian sounded apologetic. "Emmaline really likes the chewing gum, but the other two don't. And Annabel prefers the Milky Ways over the Butterfingers."

Mal made a few switches and substitutions in his piles. "The gummy bugs are for Connery," Katie added. "The girls won't eat them. And the strawberry Nibblets are for Annabel, the lemon for Emmaline, and the gooseberry for Connery."

Mal shuffled more things around. If he gave all the gummy bugs to Connery, the girls needed to have items of equal value to make up for that, according to the hastily-composed rules he'd been given. Were the sugar sticks of equal value to the gummy bugs? But the sugar sticks came in different colors and should be divvied up according to that, shouldn't they? Perhaps the Chocolate Seals were equal to the gummy bugs—they were about the same size. But the gummy O's were another gummy candy, so they were really more equivalent. But the packages they came in were larger, so on a per-weight basis the gummy O's were of greater value than the gummy bugs. What about gummy worms? They were also gummy and approximately the right size, but wouldn't a child who objected to eating gummy bugs _also_ object to the gummy worms?

"Don't fret so much, buddy," Trip advised, seeing Mal's head about to explode. "Just put whatever you want in there, the kids'll trade it all around anyway."

Katie snorted. "Obviously you don't have children," she remarked.

"No, but I remember _bein'_ one," Trip shot back. "And we didn't get into a fight about who got what color of candy."

"I wouldn't know," Katie replied frostily. _Because I wasn't there_ was clearly the rest of the sentence, at least for those who'd grown up in the Tucker household.

"Oh, just stuff it," Lizzie cut in flippantly. When Trip and Katie turned their glares on her she added brightly, "I was talking to Mal."

Trip was easily swayed and smirked as he went back to wrapping packages. Katie was not so easily swayed but knew when to hold her tongue (sometimes) and went back to wrapping packages. Mal, sensing this was not the appropriate time to ask more questions, set about developing a candy conversion matrix on his own. Not to mention calculating a settling rate and firmness factor for each kind of candy, as well as grading it according to how much it absorbed the odors of candy placed next to it.

"Say, is this the Chipmunks Christmas album?" Eddie wondered idly, listening to the music repeating at a low level.

Trip rolled his eyes. "G-d, who put _that_ on?" he demanded.

"Um," said Steve nervously.

"Figures," Trip remarked.

"Problem with the Chipmunks?" Lizzie asked him warningly.

"No, not at all," Trip assured her. "In fact I intend to recommend their use as a sonic weapon next time we encounter a hostile species."

Lizzie threw a discarded ribbon at Trip. Her two little dachshunds went yipping excitedly after it and proceeded to start an enthusiastic tug of war. Katie's two Westies then felt left out and tried to join in. "Lizzie!" Katie chastised, drawing her dogs back and shushing them. "Do you want to wake the kids up?"

Lizzie had been laughing hysterically at her dogs' antics and was easily producing just as much noise. "They're all the way up in the attic!" she protested. "They can't hear a thing."

"I should go up and check on them," Katie worried. "I think it's awfully drafty up there. I don't remember it being so drafty."

"Been meanin' to have the roof looked at," Ma commented from her couch. "Probably needs some new weather sealing."

"I would have thought you'd want to get that done before—" Katie clearly wanted to say, _Before we were staying up in the attic._ But she amended it to, "—before winter."

"Just didn't get around to it," Ma replied nonchalantly.

Katie had always been irritated that her stepmother refused to take certain things seriously. "Maybe next year we could all get you and Pop a new roof," she suggested, just pleasantly enough to avoid accusations of cattiness.

From most people, anyway. "Just give it a rest, Katie," Trip told her. "This is Florida, not Andoria. They're probably shovin' off half the covers you piled on them."

"Where's Andoria?" Lizzie asked, indicating her brother was weird for thinking of it.

"It's where the… Andorians come from," Trip explained. "Whole planet's covered in ice."

"I forgot, you're the great galactic traveler," Katie sniped.

"Eddie, hand your brother and sister a ribbon," Pop instructed amiably. "Give 'em something _important_ to fight over."

"Okay, but I get to be Schnitzel," Trip grinned. At the mention of his name one of Lizzie's wiener dogs started barking again. And then the other one started barking, too, for good measure. Or maybe they didn't even really know which of them was which.

Trip shook his head and glanced back over at Mal, sighing when he saw that the other man had filled a scrap of wrapping paper with equations—but not put a single thing into a stocking. He scooted across the carpet to him. "You know," he said in a quiet tone, "you don't really have to do this much work for it. The kids'll be thrilled with whatever they get, and anything extra we'll just put in a bag underneath the stocking."

"No, I think I've got it," Mal decided with growing satisfaction, scribbling one last algorithm. He stared at his figures a moment, the confidently picked up a stocking and began filling it. "Can you hold this for me?" he requested of Trip, who sighed and held the stocking as directed.

"Mal, you're never going to fit all that stuff in here," Trip warned, looking at the large pile Mal was drawing from.

"I think I will," Mal countered cheerfully, rotating a candy bar to the proper orientation before placing it in the stocking. "Once I realized it actually required a five-dimensional matrix, I was able to apply fractal geometry to the problem."

Trip looked up to see everyone staring at them. "Oh sure, that's what I would have done," he joked. "Uh, the fourth dimension is time, right?" Mal seemed to have a precise order in which everything needed to be added. "What's the fifth?"

"Also time," Mal replied confidently. "But it takes into account how the various candies will settle over time, thus changing the arrangement of mass within the stocking."

"Oh," Trip answered after a long moment. He saw Elaine snitch the bit of wrapping paper with Mal's calculations and examine it. "How's it look, Professor?"

"Mal, would you mind if I made a copy of this?" Elaine asked instead. "I think this would make an excellent exercise for the students in my advanced geometrics class." She read it over a little more. "I'll have to make it extra credit, though."

"Ask Trip," Mal advised, taking the stocking back though it was only half filled.

Elaine turned her serious gaze on Trip. "Yeah, sure," he agreed helplessly.

Very carefully, Mal brought the stocking over to Pop. "Could you please hold this for a few minutes, Pop?" he asked earnestly. "Just here and here, and please try not to jostle it."

"Yes, sir," Pop agreed, straight-faced.

"The contents need to settle before I can add the rest," Mal explained, handing another empty stocking to Trip.

Within ten minutes Mal had added every single required item to the stockings, placing Trip's real live alien rock onto the top of each with a flourish. He then rose and hung each stocking—currently being supported at the proper pressure points by Trip, Pop, and Eddie—by the chimney with care, or rather on the hooks above the fireplace. He put his hands on his hips, looking at the results of his efforts with a gratified smile.

Trip started to clap. "Well done, Mal!" A smattering of applause and some hoots from the livelier family members left Mal diving into the shelter of Trip's arms, beet red. He was actually quite relieved with Katie followed her script and shushed them all with another reminder about not waking the children.

"Five-dimensional matrix, huh?" Trip said quietly to Mal when the others had gone back to their tasks.

"Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time," Mal shrugged. "Um, so… shall we wrap packages, then?"

"Oh, no," Trip insisted. "You have earned the rest of the night off. Here, have some beer." Mal took Trip's newly-opened bottle. "Besides, I'm almost done anyway." Trip—being no slouch in the geometry department himself—had determined precisely the amount of paper he would need for each gift and wrapped them without producing a single scrap. He was hopeless at the ribbons and bows part, though, and had initiated a trade agreement with the more artistically-minded Lizzie.

"Thanks," Mal said as Trip crawled back to tackle the last few gifts. "Could I try some of the leftover candy, do you think?"

"Sure, go ahead," Trip shrugged. "Hey, just make sure it doesn't have nuts in it first, okay?"

"Right," Mal agreed, pulling out the hand scanner Dr. Phlox had loaned him. "No nuts or seafood."

"I _hope_ there's no seafood in the candy," Trip shuddered. It occurred to him, slightly too late, that perhaps now was not really the time or place to find out what happened when Mal consumed a large quantity of sugar in one sitting… he'd never noticed a tendency towards hyperactivity after dessert, or any other behavioral change, but one thing he had definitely learned about Mal was that you could never predict how he would react to something—food-wise, anyway. Trip squirmed around on the floor to keep a closer eye on him.

Picking up the most intriguing candy first, Mal crawled up between Pop's knees, resting his elbows on his thighs. "Pop, are these real worms?" he asked pensively, shaking a bag of gummy worms.

The response was horribly predictable. "No!" chorused almost everyone in the room.

"Yes," said Pop, with great sincerity. And Mal clearly didn't believe in the concept of 'majority rules.'

Mal opened the bag, still perched in Pop's lap, and dangled one of the candies into his mouth. "It doesn't taste like the worms I've had before," he noted.

"When did you eat worms?" Lizzie queried, intrigued and disgusted at the same time.

"The Klingons have a dish called _gagh_ that's made of live worms," Mal told her off hand. "And so do these little grey aliens we met. We had a banquet for them on _Enterprise_." Several people, not including Katie, looked suitably impressed. He sucked down another gummy worm. "These obviously aren't alive, though."

Mal looked up at Pop hopefully and the other man didn't disappoint. "They're candied worms," he explained easily. "They're grown in the Andes Mountains on a special diet, then when they reach maturity they're packed in a sugar solution to preserve them."

A host of disbelieving noises met this story but Mal ignored them. "Really?"

"Absolutely," Pop assured him, starting to pet Mal's hair. "That's what _this_ says." He pointed to the part of the packaging containing a large paragraph of unfamiliar characters.

Mal squinted at it. "Hmm. Isn't that Chinese?"

"Can you read Chinese?" Pop asked.

"No."

"Well, it's in Chinese because that's where they ship the worms to be sugar-coated," Pop went on confidently. "They have to be aged in small batches at just the right temperature, you know."

"I had no idea," Mal confessed earnestly, nibbling another worm. He leaned his head on Pop's knee, closing his eyes to better enjoy the petting.

Trip smirked and shook his head. "Mal, how can you be so smart and so dumb at the same time?"

"Charles Tucker, don't you call him _dumb_ ," Ma scolded. Mal stuck his tongue out at Trip. "And don't you stick your tongue out at him," she added.

"Your tongue's _blue_ ," Trip noted gleefully.

"Ooh, really?" Mal stuck his tongue out again and crossed his eyes trying to see for himself.

"Honestly," Katie muttered.

"Okay, I'm sick of the Chipmunks," Lizzie announced, hopping up from the floor. "What should I put on instead?" Five different replies met her question, so she ignored them and chose what she wanted. Livelier—and louder—music began pouring from the speakers.

"Lizzie!" snapped her older sister.

"You know, I could've gone to a Christmas Eve dance instead of coming here," Lizzie remarked, moving to the clear center of the room. "But _Steeeeeeeeeve_ doesn't dance!"

"Would you turn that down," Katie said, and it was not a request.

"Oh, Eddie can sit at the foot of the stairs and warn us if the kids wake up," Lizzie countered dismissively, and Eddie started to do so.

"Make Steve go," Trip suggested instead, "since he won't be dancing." Eddie sat back down, even though he honestly wouldn't have minded sitting quietly in the hall away from the noise, and Steve was dispatched in his place.

"Trii-iip," Lizzie whined, in a tone remarkably like Mal's, "come and dance with me!"

"Okay, but I'll have to throw out all your presents I haven't wrapped yet," he teased.

"I thought you had _two left feet_ ," Mal commented suspiciously.

"Er, yes, well," Trip hedged, "I'm certainly not good enough to keep up with _you_ , buddy. Hey," he added quickly, "Lizzie, have Mal dance with you. He's a great dancer."

The young woman looked down at Mal dubiously. "Really?"

"Oh yeah," Trip assured her. "Just like Ginger Rogers. Mal, go on." Mal, feeling shy, scrunched himself up around Pop's feet.

"Oh, come on, you," Lizzie insisted, grabbing his hand. "Let's go!"

"Well, don't make him if he doesn't want to," Trip reversed.

"I suppose it might be okay…" Mal decided slowly, standing. Before he knew it Lizzie had whirled him around to the beat of the music. A less graceful person would have stumbled, but Mal caught himself expertly and quickly set about finding the appropriate steps for the rhythm of the song.

"Hey, you're pretty good," Lizzie decided, with great surprise. "You wanna go out clubbing with me later this week?"

"No!" Trip answered for him sternly.

Within just a few minutes Mal and Lizzie were making an impressive show in the living room. Not everyone was pleased, though. "You are being too loud!" Katie hissed, as the volume of the music had been steadily turned up, and Lizzie's laughter carried over it.

As much as Trip enjoyed watching Mal dance, he was forced to agree with his older sister on this—not that he was going to actually _say_ that. But he realized that if even one little face poked around the doorway (as Trip rather doubted Steve's abilities to guard the stairs) Katie was going to declare Christmas a complete disaster, and she would hold Trip, through Mal and Lizzie, responsible for it. "Come on, buddy, it's about time for you to go to bed."

"Really?" Mal asked with disappointment. "But I had a nap today. I'm not sleepy."

Trip pushed his last present under the tree and stood up, to appear more authoritative. "I know, but we have to get up early tomorrow for opening the presents." _And maybe in a couple hours we could go out to the hot tub._

That sealed it for Mal. "Okay, then." Lizzie was a bit put out, but nonetheless Trip and Mal gave their goodnights.

"You didn't used to be the first one to go to bed," Lizzie pointed out, trailing them out into the hall.

"I'm gettin' old, you know," Trip told her with a smirk. "And lookin' after Mal all day wears me out."

"I'm very trying," Mal agreed supportively.

"Goodnight, Lizzie," Trip said, giving his younger sister another hug. "Merry Christmas."

"Well, Merry Christmas, old man," she decided, hugging back.

 

"Would you hurry up?!"

"I just need to check these."

"Don't poke at them, you'll make them fall!"

"They aren't going to _fall_. I hung them very securely."

"Mal, I'm freezin' my butt off here!"

"Well that's ironic, considering your _butt_ is the only body part covered, nearly."

"Oh, very funny, quite the comedian. Hurry up!"

"I spent a _rather_ long time stuffing these stockings, you know. I don't think it's unreasonable that I want to make certain the contents are still—"

"What?"

"I thought I heard something."

"Where?"

"I'm not sure… Over there?"

"It was probably just the house settling."

"The house _settles_?"

"Yeah, just little creaks and stuff at night, when the temperature falls. And _speaking of falling temperatures_ …"

"Fine, fine, I'm done… You don't think it was a gator, do you?"

"No, I don't. Come on."

The two men padded through the dark house, clad only in gaudy swimming trunks and clutching towels. Trip stopped at the controls for the pool heater but hesitated as he reached for it. "It's already on," he frowned. "Geez, I hope the kids didn't leave it on from earlier—I thought I saw Ma turn it off…"

A splash, followed by a giggle, drew their attention. Cautiously Mal and Trip tiptoed towards the door to the back porch and eased it open, their presence easily concealed on the dark patio. More giggling and splashing from the direction of the hot tub, as well as dark shapes rising from it. Trip's eyes narrowed as he recognized the voice of one of the gigglers, and he reached out and flipped on the light switch.

The giggles changed to squeals and there was a rapid movement from the users of the hot tub, which may or may not have involved one Lizzie Tucker retying the strings of her bikini top. "What are you doing?!" she demanded of her older brother.

Trip gave them both a glare, and Steve at least had the sense to look nervous. "Well I could ask _you_ the same question, couldn't I?"

"We just wanted to use the hot tub," Lizzie protested, trying very hard to sound innocent and responsible. "After the children had gone to bed, and no one else would bother us."

"Oh, that's what we wanted to do, too," Mal remarked pleasantly.

Lizzie raised an eyebrow at her brother. "Well, Mal and I were not going to _make out_ in the hot tub," Trip informed her primly. "He just doesn't like everyone splashing around nearby."

"We weren't making out," Lizzie stated, daring her brother to prove her wrong. "And anyway, I'm an _adult_ , you know."

Trip was suddenly glad they _hadn't_ grown up with the pool. He would never have gotten any sleep from patrolling it all night, on the lookout for his sister's many boyfriends. "Well, if you're such an adult," he told her casually, leaning against the wall of the house, "how 'bout I call Ma and Pop down here, and we can all have a nice family swim, hmm?"

Lizzie glared at him. "You're a _rotten_ older brother."

"Yeah, I know," he smirked.

"Fine." Lizzie tried to concede with great dignity, though it was somewhat difficult to rise from a hot tub with dignity, especially when one's clothing was more of an impediment than an asset.

"J---s C----t, Lizzie, what the h--l are you wearing?!" Trip demanded. Or mostly _not_ wearing.

Mal looked around. "Oh dear, is Jesus going to arrive here now? He must be getting tired of us after today…"

Trip ignored him and focused on his sister. "What is that, like a _kids'_ bikini or something?"

"It's the latest style," Lizzie sniffed. "Not that _you_ know anything about style," she added, glancing at his atrocious swim trunks. "Come on, Steve."

"Goodnight, Lizzie!" Trip called.

"Goodnight, Lizzie!" Mal added pleasantly.

"Goodnight, Mal," the young woman replied pointedly. "My, don't you look cute with those pineapples."

"Thank you. Trip got them for me."

"Um, night," Steve offered. Trip glared at him in return.

After the young couple finally left Trip walked over to the hot tub and stared at it for a long moment. "Mal, I know this might upset you," he began slowly, "but I'm not sure I really want to get in it, now."

Mal nodded understandingly. "You fear it's become _soiled_." Trip stared at him. "Metaphorically, I mean," Mal added quickly. "Well, not to worry, the hot tub has a water recirculation rate such that we need only wait five point seven minutes before the water has been completely refreshed." Trip stared again. "I read the manual," Mal told him helpfully.

"Well that's just great," Trip decided with a sigh.

"Do you think Jesus will want to use the hot tub as well?" Mal questioned conversationally.

"Jesus isn't gonna show up at the house, Mal," Trip told him, for lack of anything else to do for the next five point seven minutes.

"Oh, right, of course, Santa Claus is the one coming to the house," Mal corrected, and Trip began to suspect that he was being messed with. "Except Santa Claus isn't real, but Jesus is."

"Let's not even talk about this," Trip suggested.

"It's just strange what humans choose to teach their children is real, and what isn't," Mal shrugged. "I mean, Santa Claus living in the middle of a frozen wasteland, consorting with small creatures who do nothing but build toys, judging all the children of the world according to some ill-defined morality and then delivering toys in one night to those he's found worthy… And then on the other hand you have Jesus, who _also_ judges people, but He at least has put out a book of rules, and He's sort of alive but not really living in any defined place, and I didn't see anything about Him delivering toys but He _does_ seem to hand out bread and fish to people… Trip, what do you suppose Jesus did with all the people who were allergic to seafood?" Mal wanted to know. "Did they just get the bread? I suppose if I were hungry I would rather have bread than nothing at all, but some people would get both bread _and_ fish. Oughtn't He have had some kind of vegetable dish, don't you think, for the people who were vegetarians or who were allergic to seafood?"

"Let's play a game, Mal," Trip said, when the other man finally stopped talking. "Let's play the Quiet Game. Let's see who can be quiet the longest."

"Okay!" Mal agreed brightly. "But I bet _I_ will win!"

"I hope so, buddy."


	4. Chapter 4

_Friday_

Muffled shouts and pounding feet woke Trip and he sat up sharply, momentarily disoriented. Mal touched his arm gently and reminded him, "It's okay, Trip, it's Christmas morning," and the cowboy-themed bedroom coalesced into view around him.

Trip flopped back down onto the pillows, mildly embarrassed. "Right. Happy children, not one of Marcus's G-d-awful Tactical Alert sirens."

Mal patted his arm. "Your reflexes are very sound," he said soothingly.

"Well, I guess we better get up," Trip decided, reaching up to scratch his itchy head. "The kids can only be restrained for—" There was something _on_ his head, making it itch. "What the‑‑"

Mal knelt on the bed beside Trip and looked him over curiously. "Why, what's this?" he asked, with apparent bemusement.

The object Trip had yanked from his head was a large red bow, and as he pushed the blankets back he saw someone had tied a length of matching red ribbon around his waist. "Mal, what're you—"

"My goodness, a _present_ ," Mal interrupted, as if speaking to himself. "I wonder who it's for." He followed the ribbon around Trip to a large tag affixed to one end. " _To Mal_ ," he read. " _From S.C._. Hmm, I wonder who 'S.C.' is. The Suliban Cabal, perhaps? Well, I suppose I'd best open it." Trip grinned and leaned back, letting Mal remove the ribbon. "How wonderful!" he exclaimed. "A Trip! Just what I've always wanted!" With that he threw his arms around Trip and squeezed.

Trip hugged him back. "You are such a goofball," he said affectionately, and Mal grinned.

A chime at the door interrupted them. Eddie stuck his head in and remarked, "Katie says to hurry up, the kids are chomping at the bit and you're the last two."

Trip rolled out of bed and grabbed his sweatshirt. "Well, come on, Mal, we gotta—"

Mal grabbed his arm and pulled him back. "But we have to shower! And get dressed!"

Trip gave Eddie a sideways glance. "Um, go tell 'em we'll be there in a minute, would you?" he requested.

Eddie just raised his eyebrows in response. "No way am I goin' back to Sister without you two. She'd have my hide."

Trip sighed and turned to Mal. "Look, buddy, it's Christmas morning. Everyone's gonna be fresh out of bed, in their PJ's. It's tradition!"

Mal was palpably distressed. "You didn't _tell_ me that! I would have gotten up earlier and gotten ready!"

"Mal, it's not a big deal, just—"

"I'm not _clean_! I'm not fit to be seen by anyone!" Mal gave Trip a sharp look. "And neither are _you_."

"Trip! Mal! _Eddie_! Where are you?" came a voice from the foot of the stairs. A voice that was quickly losing patience. The mildly amused expression on Eddie's face, courtesy of his older brother's tight spot, was quickly wiped away as he realized he was right in that spot with him.

Trip knew how the voice felt. But he couldn't possibly yell at Mal—it was Christmas morning, after all, and they'd been having such a nice moment. Instead he dropped to his knees in front of the bed where Mal was still curled and took his hand. "Buddy, I'm sorry I didn't explain better what you should expect. I should have. But every single person is gonna be in their pajamas down there, and no one will have showered. No one's even gonna have their hair combed! But it's okay, because we're all family, and we don't have to look good for each other."

"Ain't that the truth," Eddie put in, with a bit of a smirk.

Trip gave him a look, then turned back to Mal. "And they're all down there right now, waiting for us. So will you please come down with me? Please?"

Mal took a long pause to consider. "Very well," he finally relented.

Trip jumped to his feet and practically pulled Mal off the bed. He put his other arm around his brother's shoulders and gave him a big grin. "Merry Christmas, Eddie!"

"Merry Christmas, Trip," Eddie returned as the three of them maneuvered down the hall. "That was very well done, by the way," he added, indicating the still-nervous, but present, Mal.

"Thanks."

Noises of relief and impatience met them at the foot of the stairs. "Where've you been? Hurry up! We have to see what Santa left us!"

"Alright, alright," laughed Trip. "We're here now, so let's get this show on the road!"

The children gave whoops of joy and tugged the adults into the family room, like a small pack of dogs with many leashes. And speaking of dogs, somehow the whole crowd of them appeared, with the little ones yapping and jumping while Blue and Gigolo Joe snorted and looked down on them disdainfully. Trip hung back with Mal, staying in the hallway for the big scene when the children saw their gifts under the tree and their stockings by the fireplace—they could hear it fine, and Trip feared Mal was going to be ill with all the chaos and noise and flashes from the cameras.

"You okay, buddy?" Trip asked, rubbing his arms. "Listen, if you really want to, you can go back upstairs now, until it calms down."

Mal shook his head resolutely. "N-no, I'll be okay," he insisted.

Trip gave him another hug. "Thanks. You're real good to me, Mal," he added warmly. "Now come on."

They entered the family room to find the children sitting on the floor near the tree with their mathematically-stuffed stockings. Trip took a chair off to the side, but before Mal settled between his feet he crawled over to the greying basset hound in front of the fireplace. "Hey, Joe, what do you know?" Mal whispered, and the dog promptly broke wind, much to Mal's continued astonishment. "He is _so_ smart," he insisted to Trip, rejoining his friend. Trip just grinned and shook his head, engaged in shooing away the little dogs who came over to bark at them.

"Is something wrong, Annabel?" The sudden question from Katie drew everyone's attention back to the children. Connery and Emmaline were tearing through their stockings, leaving trinkets and candy and real live alien rocks (Trip hoped someone had explained to them what those were) lying around them like Christmas shrapnel. Annabel, however—clad in her nightgown and glittery wings—merely picked at her stocking listlessly. "Don't you feel okay, honey? I _knew_ all those cookies before bed were a bad idea…"

"I feel okay, Mummy," Annabel replied in a sad voice. "It's just that… that… I saw Mal and Uncle Trip by the stockings last night and they said _Mal_ had packed them, not Santa!" she blurted in distress.

The room fell silent. Trip felt Mal stop breathing and immediately put a hand on his shoulder. Every pair of eyes flickered over to them for a moment before several people began talking all at once.

"What were you doing out of bed last night?"

"You were just dreaming!"

"You must have heard them wrong."

"Um, well, maybe Santa _brought_ the stuff but didn't have time to put it in the stocking himself, so—"

Annabel shook her head regretfully at each suggestion, even those that came from Connery (almost certain he knew The Truth) and Emmaline (beginning to suspect).

Mal finally moved, spinning to face Trip and throw himself across his lap. "I've ruined _everything_!" he whispered desperately, even as Trip tried to calm and quiet him.

The clamor of voices was hushed, suddenly, by Pop. "Smart kids like you," he began in an even, reasonable tone. "Surprised you haven't figured it out yet."

"Figured _what_ out?" Emmaline asked suspiciously, while her brother restrained himself admirably.

"Pop," Katie warned, nervous.

Pop jerked his head towards Mal. "He's an elf."

Eyes widened around the room. "An… elf?" Annabel repeated slowly.

"Sure," Pop replied, his manner easy and casual. "It was supposed to be a secret, of course, but it looks like you caught him."

"Like a Christmas elf?" Emmaline asked, struggling with the concept.

Annabel's eyes lit up suddenly. "Like Weebo, the _missing_ elf?"

"Well, Mal's not missing," Pop clarified. "Santa knows right where he is. He's just taking a little vacation with his friend, Uncle Trip."

Trip tapped Mal on the shoulder, a huge grin on his face, and indicated the other man should turn back around. Fearfully Mal did so—and found himself mobbed by the two little girls. "Mal! You're an elf! Of course, it all makes sense now!"

Katie shot her father a look of pure gratitude—in fact he was getting those from a number of people, Trip included, who was currently vowing to never again chide his father for his B.S.‑ing. One person, however, was still caught in the struggle between imagination and logic.

"How can he be an elf?" asked Connery. "He's an alien!"

"Eh, that's just the cover story," Pop assured him. "Does he look or act like any other aliens you've met?"

"Well, no…" the boy admitted, completely missing (or ignoring) his mother's gestures to _drop it_. "But, like—why does he sit on the floor all the time? What's _that_ got to do with being an elf?"

"He's just used to it," Emmaline decided. "He probably sits on the floor all day making toys."

Well, that seemed reasonable enough. "What about the jumping?"

"He _has_ to be good at jumping," Annabel asserted. "To jump over all the snowdrifts at the North Pole!"

"Now you guys are catchin' on," Pop said approvingly.

"Well are you guys gonna get back to opening presents or what?" prompted Trip. He could see Mal was still rather shaken by the morning's events, and they'd only been up for twenty minutes.

"Yay! Presents!"

"I have to finish my stocking first!"

"Well get busy, slowpoke!"

As soon as the attention of the room had gone back to the children, Mal turned and tried to burrow into Trip's lap. Trip rubbed his head and back soothingly. _Calm down there, buddy, everything's alright now._

"I _almost_ ruined everything," Mal muttered into Trip's stomach.

 _It wasn't your fault,_ Trip assured him. _And Pop saved the day. So everything's okay._

"Did Mal bring the presents, too, Granddad?" Emmaline inquired, realizing who the true authority on the matter was.

"No, of course not," Pop explained. "Santa brought those. Santa brought all the presents, Mal just helped out by filling the stockings, bein' as he was here and all. Saved Santa a few minutes' work."

"Hey! That's what _I_ said!" Lizzie pointed out teasingly.

"Thank you for stuffing our stockings, Mal," Annabel said, giving him another hug.

"Well, er, you're welcome."

"And don't forget to thank your Uncle Trip for the, um, alien rocks," Katie reminded the children.

"Thank you, Uncle Trip!"

"Those came from _Andoria_ ," he claimed.

"Notice they were on _top_ of all the things from Santa," Mal pointed out.

"Well if you're done with your stockings," Ma began, rising, "how 'bout we all have a little breakfast now?" Hearty approval—though not necessarily from the gift-deprived children—met this suggestion, and everyone was herded into the dining room.

"Why don't you go help Ma and Pop in the kitchen?" Trip said quietly, and Mal scrambled away gratefully.

"But Uncle Trip, how did you _meet_ Mal?" one of the children asked.

"Well, I wish I could tell you," Trip replied. "But I'm afraid that information is classified."

"Classified?" Annabel repeated. "What does _that_ mean?"

"It means _secret_ ," Connery explained, glad he was finally able to explain _something_. "Like, if he told you, the bad guys would come and get you in the night so you couldn't tell anyone else." Annabel looked alarmed and the boy was immediately chided by various family members. "Well, that was just an _example_ ," he claimed.

Ma, Pop, and Mal emerged from the kitchen bearing warm cinnamon rolls with red and green sprinkles, juice, and coffee. Mal settled down on the floor beside Trip, hugging close to him. "Here's your cinnamon roll, buddy," Trip said, handing him a small plate.

Mal took it but looked slightly green around the gills. "I don't think I can eat it," he whispered to Trip.

 _Okay, you don't have to,_ Trip assured him. _At least have some apple juice, though._ Mal sipped his glass nervously while Trip patted his head, hoping he would calm down soon.

Breakfast was completed in record time and the children bounced everyone back to the family room. This time Trip snagged a spot on the couch where he and Mal would have a better view of the action. There were too many people in the family for each to open a present individually while everyone oohed and aahed over it. Instead the three kids were vaguely assigned to make certain people had gifts before them to open, whereupon thanks would be shouted from the recipient to the giver amid a haze of other paper-tearing, plastic-cracking, dog-barking hubbub. Trip had never considered before how loud and overstimulating it could be; that was the kind of activity he thrived on. But now as he tried to think about what would make _Mal_ comfortable, he began to understand why Eddie—always pegged as the "sensitive" one—stayed in a corner off to the side.

 _We can go sit farther away if you want,_ Trip informed Mal. He seemed to appreciate the offer but chose to stick it out near the tree.

Trip knew he was feeling better when Mal took the recycling bag from Ma and started crawling around the floor, scooping up every scrap of paper almost as soon as it hit the carpet. "Don't throw the bows away, Mal!" someone insisted, so he began arranging the discarded decorations in neat piles by color and size, then rearranging them when the excited little dogs plowed through them. Lizzie tried to wing a crumpled wad of paper at Mal's head, much to Trip's irritation, but Mal caught it without even looking and deposited it in his bag.

It had taken some doing, but even before leaving _Enterprise_ Trip had begun impressing upon his family members that Mal did not want any gifts solely for himself… he'd practically thrown a little fussy fit when Trip had first explained the gifting process to him, worrying that he wouldn't know what to say in response and what if he offended someone and what if someone got him a gift but _he_ hadn't gotten anything for them, and on and on until Trip had to administer medicinal doses of pudding and pineapple. In the end Trip figured it would just be less hassle for someone to tack "Trip and" onto a gift tag, than it would be to answer _all_ Mal's questions about proper gift-opening and –accepting behavior.

"C'mere and look at this buddy," Trip grinned, holding up his newly-unwrapped gift from Lizzie.

Mal crawled over and examined the packet of data chips. "What's this? Ooh! Are these _musicals_? Nice happy musicals with lots of singing and dancing and people wearing tilted shoes?"

"I believe they are exactly that," Trip agreed, sending his sister an appreciative look. "Think you might like to watch 'em with me?"

"Oh, I certainly would!" Mal told him heartily. "Thank you, Trip, you are _so_ thoughtful!" Another problem Mal had: he always wanted to thank Trip for something, even if Trip really hadn't had anything to do with it. Fortunately Lizzie found this hilarious and another thing she could needle her brother about.

"Ooohhh!" A squeal from one of the children—in this case Annabel—was usually a signal for the others to look up from their "boring" adult gifts to watch the uninhibited enthusiasm on display. The little girl was excitedly holding a blue box up to her mother. "Lookit lookit lookit, Mummy! It's an Iris Blue doll!"

Her mother took the toy packaging and regarded it as though seeing it for the first time. "Why, so it is!" She held it up for the others to get a look at the winged fairy doll within. "You're sure you don't already have this one?"

"Oh no, Mummy," Annabel assured her. "I have Rose Pink and Pansy Purple and Lily White and Buttercup Yellow, but not Iris Blue!"

"She can remember the names of every doll she has, as well as all those she _doesn't_ have," Katie remarked dryly, "but the last third of the alphabet is still giving her trouble."

"Dada, open the package for me, please!" Annabel requested, running to her father.

Patiently Ian opened the box and removed the fastenings holding the doll in place. "There you go," he announced, handing her the blond, blue-clad doll.

"I need the remote control, too," she prompted, and he freed that as well.

"Does this come with power cells?" he asked, turning the remote over. "Honey, did, er, Santa leave any power cells for this?"

"Oh, Da, everything _comes_ with power cells now," Connery scoffed.

"Thank you, Dada," Annabel said politely, snatching the controller and bounding away. "Now watch this!" She set the doll in the middle of the floor and began expertly flicking buttons on the controller.

"Annabel, I think you probably shouldn't play with that right now—" Katie began, but the doll on the floor gave a twitch and then rose gracefully into the air, her wings fluttering.

"Wow, you're pretty good at that," Trip noted.

"She's logged many hours of practice," Katie replied, shaking her head. "That's enough, Annabel, I don't want you to crash her into anything."

"Aw, Mum, I won't _crash_ her!" The doll soared higher and began flying faster, swooping and diving in complex patterns. Suddenly the little dogs noticed the shiny blue object darting through the air and started yapping furiously beneath it. Even old Blue looked up with some interest.

"Annabel, I _told_ you—"

A thought struck Trip and he immediately whipped around to face Mal. _Mal_ —The other man was ignoring his bag of Christmas detritus, his eyes slightly glazed and fixed on the bright blue toy. _Mal, don't you dare_ —

Annabel was getting scared. In her excitement she'd forgotten that the little Westies liked to chase her flying dolls, and now the two little dachshunds were snapping and yelping at it as well. She couldn't keep it flying above their heads forever, and if one of them got hold of it—well, the _first_ Rose Pink had met a rather unpleasant end. "Mummy!"

"Oh, for goodness sake, Annabel—"

"Mal! Stay here!"

"Mummy! My dolly! The dogs!"

"Schnitzel, Oscar, get back here, you naughty things!"

"Abiasaph! Hazargaddah! Come here!"

"Mal, come here, don't—"

But it was too late. Mal, eyes glued to his target, made a flying leap through the air and tackled the fairy doll, tucking himself into a ball and rolling to the ground even as the little dogs pounced upon him. Confusion reigned for a few moments as the dogs were secured, and Trip ran over to Mal.

"Mal! Are you okay, buddy?" _And if you have broken that doll so help me I will—_

"I didn't _break_ it," Mal insisted, uncurling himself. He held the doll cradled carefully in his arms, even her delicate wings still intact. "I was trying to _save_ it."

"Oh Mal, thank you!" Annabel exclaimed, taking the doll from him. She gave him another hug. "You rescued my dolly from the mean dogs!"

"Nice form there, Mal," Lizzie called over.

"See? Elves are trained to protect toys," Emmaline told her brother. "Just like the Secret Service."

Trip patted Mal on the shoulder. "Good job, buddy. Sorry I thought you would break it—shoulda known better, I guess."

"That's okay, Trip," Mal assured him. He leaned over to whisper in his friend's ear. "It was _so_ tempting, though, especially when the little wings twitched…"

"Well, I'm glad you restrained yourself," Trip whispered back. "Come on, let's go back and join the others."

Trip sat down on the couch again and Mal resumed his clean-up duties, reorganizing the bows that the dogs had trampled on again (no doubt out of spite for spoiling their fairy-chasing fun). "Here's a big box for you, Uncle Trip," Connery announced, dumping the package at Trip's feet and racing off to find one for himself.

A few moments later. "Um, geez, that's a lot of pudding," Steve commented brightly, staring at the crate of pudding mix before Trip. He tried to make a joke. "Some kind of weird pudding fixation or—" Trip glared at him and he shut up.

"Did someone mention—ooh! _Pudding!_ " Mal began digging through the crate, counting up all the little boxes of chocolate-flavored powder. "Look, Trip, you just have to add water and it turns into pudding! What a marvelous invention! What a delightful gift!"

"Thanks, Pop," Trip told his father with a smirk. "Just what I always wanted."

"Had a real good time at the store explaining why my son needed that much pudding mix," Pop replied mischievously.

Gradually the presents began disappearing from under the tree, transforming into data chips of the latest bestselling books and movies, clothing, tools, toys, and various other odds and ends. The children rooted beneath the polymer branches like terriers (and alongside terriers), digging out every gift no matter how far back it had been placed.

Emmaline examined the tag to a gift bag she had retrieved from the far side of the tree. "Hey, this one's for Mal!" she reported, slightly surprised as she hadn't delivered any other gifts to him that morning.

Mal looked up from where he was tussling with one of the dachshunds over some scrap paper, his eyes widening with surprise and not a little apprehension. "For _me_?" he repeated slowly. "Are you quite certain? It doesn't, perhaps, say… _Ma_ with some kind of random mark afterwards?"

"No, it says _Mal_ ," Emmaline asserted, crawling the bag over to him. Schnitzel and Oscar, seeing the recycling bag momentarily unguarded, dove into it gleefully.

Well. The tag did indeed say _To Mal_. " _From Trip_ ," he read aloud. Joy and distress warred on his features. "But _you_ said we weren't to get each other presents! I haven't got a present for _you_!"

Trip grinned. "Don't worry about that, buddy. You go ahead and open it."

It didn't take any more than Trip's approval for Mal to get into the spirit of the occasion. "It's a present, it's a present, it's a present from Trip," Mal sang, feeling the outside of the bag. The children giggled. "But I don't understand _how_ you got me a present, I was with you the whole time in San Francisco, and I inventoried all your purchases and packed all the suitcases, and you haven't been thinking about it at all, so I just don't see how—"

"Mal! Would you just open it?!"

"Oh. Right, then." Mal removed the first layer of tissue paper from the top of the bag. "Oh, look! Thin paper! How beautiful! It's _so_ delicate, and look at how the light—"

"Mal!" Trip squirmed on the couch with impatient amusement. "That's not the gift, it's just part of the packaging!"

"Well I _know_ ," Mal replied, folding the tissue paper into a neat little square. "I just wanted to admire your efforts." He pulled out a second sheet of tissue paper. "Oh! This sheet is _green_! What a lovely contrast to the white. You really have _such_ an artistic eye, Trip."

"Arrrrgh!" Trip exclaimed in frustration. " _I_ didn't even wrap it! Ma did! Would you just open it!"

Mal smirked in a way that made their audience realize he was deliberately teasing Trip, who was not known among the family for his vast reserves of patience. Mal looked back into the bag, searching for some other bit he could comment on, and his eye caught sight of a part of the present proper, buried in a nest of more tissue paper. The part he saw looked… familiar. He reached into the bag and batted away the remaining filler, grabbing hold of his prize and pulling it out reverently.

"What is it?" asked Annabel in confusion.

"It's a pineapple," her brother replied, shedding no light on the subject.

"A pineapple," Mal breathed, staring at the golden-brown fruit with its spines and stiff spray of leaves. He looked up at Trip. "For me?"

"All for you, buddy," Trip grinned.

Mal flew to the couch and jumped on Trip, knocking them both into Lizzie's lap. "Oh, Trip, I love you _so_ much, thank you _so_ much, it's _so_ beautiful—"

"Do you know how _hard_ it was to get that for you, without you suspecting?" Trip was laughing so hard he could barely get the words out; Mal perched on top of him and Lizzie shoving at him didn't make it any easier. "Two months! That's how long ago I asked Ma to get that for you! So I'd have time to forget about it. And I've been tryin' _so hard_ not to think about it—"

"Oh, it's wonderful, my _own_ pineapple from Trip—"

"Why would an elf be so excited about a pineapple?" Connery put to his sisters.

They were not stumped. "Well, they don't grow pineapples at the North Pole, you know," Emmaline told him smartly.

 

"Now hold up a moment," Ma ordered into the Christmas morning getting-ready-to-go chaos, and all movement seemed to grind miraculously to a halt. Ma tended to have that effect. "Before we leave I want to get some family pictures."

Mutters and groans met this decree, but they were wisely muffled. Everyone appreciated _getting_ the family photos later, especially the rare one like today's when they were _all_ together. But no one liked posing for them.

"Let's start with just the four kids," Ma directed, which everyone automatically knew meant Katie, Trip, Eddie, and Lizzie, even though there happened to be four _actual_ children present. Well, of course, Mal didn't know that, but for once it didn't take too long to explain it.

"Now Eddie, stand here, and Lizzie, get down a bit," Katie began ordering.

"Hang on, hang on," objected Trip. "We should all be over here, by the fireplace."

Katie rolled her eyes. "I _do_ supervise a lot of pictures in the church, Trip. I _think_ I know a little bit about—"

"Ha ha ha, you two are _such_ geeks," Lizzie taunted, hopping around them. "Let's all stand on our heads for the picture!"

"Lizzie, be quiet," commanded Ma. "Katie and Trip, be quiet and stand over here. Eddie, get back here and put down that data pad."

Finally Ma was satisfied with the grouping and obtained the photo. "Now let's get everyone else!" Elaine joined the crowd with the baby, Ian herded the three children over, and Steve—well aware of his transitory status—politely declined Ma's invitation to stand beside Lizzie.

"Mal, get over here," Trip summoned impatiently.

"Me?" Mal hesitated from the sidelines. "Oh, I don't know, I don't really understand this whole 'picture' process—"

"You've had your picture taken before," Trip reminded him shortly, still sulky about being involved in the 'picture process' himself. "Now get over here and look happy, or you'll wish you had." Mal scampered over immediately to kneel at Trip's feet. "Stand up," the other man insisted, pulling on the back of his shirt. Mal did so.

"Connery, smile please," Ma requested, holding the camera at the ready. "Annabel, stand still. Emmaline, come out from behind Mal, I can't see you. Okay, everyone—say 'cheese'!"

"Trip, why do we have to say—"

"Mal! Ma, did you get him okay?"

Ma glanced at the picture on the computer screen, which showed Mal turned away from the camera, pulling on Trip's arm. "Nope," she replied. "Let's try again."

"Oh dear, I'm so sorry!" Mal apologized. "I just wanted to know why we were all supposed to say—"

"Close your mouth," Trip advised. "Face Ma. Smile. Don't move."

"Nice Christmas cheer you've got there," cracked Lizzie.

"Stuff it," Trip retorted, through a camera-ready smile.

At last Ma deemed the large group photos complete. Steve had even obligingly taken the ones with Ma and Pop joining the others. "Let's do the family groups next," Ma decided.

"Didn't we just do that?" asked Mal in confusion.

"She means, like, Katie and them," Trip clarified, nodding at the group of five currently being arranged.

"Oh," Mal agreed slowly. Then he brightened. "Trip, are we 'Trip and them,' do you think?"

Trip hated to burst his bubble, but… "Well there's only one of you," he pointed out carefully, "so you can't really be a 'them.'"

"Oh."

"Hey, I've got an idea," Trip went on distractingly. "Here, you sit down on the couch—"

"Sit on the couch?" repeated Mal. "You want me to sit on the couch? By myself?"

"YES!"

"Oh, okay." Mal sat. Uncomfortably.

A moment later Trip appeared carrying baby Astraia and Mal started to get up. "Sit," Trip commanded. "Now, you'd like to try holding the baby, wouldn't you?" he said persuasively. "Come on, it'll be fun!" Elaine, hovering nervously behind Trip, did not seem to care for this kind of enticement.

"Um, I'm not really sure in what way it will be _fun_ , exactly," Mal hedged.

"'Cause you've never done it before!" Trip enthused. "And new things are fun!" Mal's look reminded Trip that he was definitely taking the wrong approach with _that_ one. "Oh, come on, you might enjoy it. Don't want you thinkin' my niece is a dog, after all…"

"Oh, no, you cleared that up completely," Mal assured him, hoping that would get him out of further obligations. Trip gave him a look, and Mal of course gave in, with trepidation. Trip leaned over and laid the baby in Mal's arms, made a few adjustments, then sat down right beside him on the couch. Elaine perched on the coffee table in front of him, taking no chances.

Mal tried to think positively. "Um, my goodness, she's really quite, uh… warm," he remarked, staring down at the infant who stared back up at him. "And much heavier than I anticipated."

"She's at the normal weight for her age," Elaine frowned.

"Um, right," Mal agreed helplessly. They were all quiet for a moment. "Well, this has been quite enlightening, thanks so much—"

"Oh, you've hardly held her at all," Trip protested. "Just try to relax a bit. She's not going to bite, are you, little bug? Little snookum ookums?" Trip wiggled the baby's fingers gently while Mal gave him a sideways glance.

Then Mal's eyes widened. "Oh, Trip, she's _moving_!" he exclaimed with alarm.

"Calm down. It's okay."

"No, she's getting all stiff! She's trying to escape from me! She doesn't like me!"

Indeed the baby was pushing out more, her little body trying to arch and roll in protest. She opened her mouth and began to wail; Mal felt like doing the same.

"Here, here, I'll take her," Elaine finally said, retrieving the infant. Mal slumped back against the couch in defeat.

"It's okay, buddy," Trip assured him, patting his shoulder. "She was just bein' fussy." He smirked. "You can relate to that."

"That was so exhausting!" Mal declared, utterly worn out. He collapsed on top of Trip. "I don't understand how human parents deal with it!"

Trip rubbed his back. "Mal, it was about two minutes, is all."

"Well, still."

"Trip and Mal," Ma beckoned. "Your turn. Come on."

"But I've already had my picture taken," Mal protested.

"Don't you want to be in my family group?" prodded Trip.

"Oh, well, of course I do…"

"Now Trip, you stand here, and Mal, right there," Ma directed once they reached the photo zone.

Trip understood that it was best to just go along with his mother and get it over with. Mal clearly did not. "Oh, Ma, I really think I ought to kneel at Trip's feet, like this," he countered.

"Master and his devoted companion," Lizzie snarked.

"Shut it," Trip said, pointing at her.

"Don't point at your sister," Ma reprimanded automatically.

Trip had never really understood why pointing was so rude, but he saved his next glare for Mal. "Get up."

"Oh, but see, this is so much better!" Mal demonstrated his suggested position. "If it's a large group photo I suppose it doesn't matter, but if it's just the two of us, and we stand beside each other, that rather implies we're equals, don't you think? And, technically speaking, that's really not true—"

"Have him clasp your leg and gaze up at you adoringly," Lizzie put in unhelpfully. "Where's the wind machine? We'll get you on the cover of that romance novel Eddie's writing!"

"Are you going for some kind of record, trying to make fun of the most people in one sitting?" Eddie inquired from the side.

Trip added threateningly, "Lizzie, I'm gonna take that wind machine, and—"

"Trip!" chided Ma, or so he assumed until he looked at her. "Just sit down next to him."

"Oh." Well, that was one way to solve it.

"Shall I put my arms around Trip, like this?" offered the budding model, unfortunately warming up to the project. "Ought I to drape myself across his lap? Ooh, I know, perhaps I should lie prostrate at his feet, like in that painting at church—"

Trip wrapped his arm around Mal's shoulders and pointed him forward. "Just smile."

"Picture-taking is _very_ complicated," Mal judged a few minutes later, when they had been temporarily discharged.

Trip wanted to tell him that _no_ , it's _not_ , but he knew that wouldn't do any good. "Um, here, have an apple," he suggested instead, pulling one from Lizzie's hand before she could take a bite.

"Oh, _thank_ you, Trip, you're so terribly thoughtful," Mal beamed at him, setting upon the fruit. He'd missed breakfast, after all.

"More like just _terrible_ ," Lizzie grumbled, going to fetch more food for herself.

"Are we almost done?" asked Connery boredly.

"I want to go to Geega's and get more presents," Annabel reminded them. Emmaline did not voice an opinion, hoping they would forget about her.

"Just a few more," Ma assured them. "I want a picture with all of my grandchildren, you know! Elaine, Ian, let me have one with you two first—" Ma paused suddenly, a thoughtful look on her face.

"What?" Trip prompted curiously.

"Hmm," Ma replied vaguely. "Mal, dear, let me have a word with you over here."

"Have I done something wrong?" Mal worried. Trip couldn't answer that. "Am I being too messy with my apple? Are you going to confiscate it?"

"No, dear, come here." Mal went. But as Trip could have predicted, he was called to join the party a moment later.

"What's the conspiracy?" he whispered theatrically.

"Well, it's just that your father and I are going to take a picture with just the in-laws," Ma began, "and one with just the grandchildren." Pause as Trip indicated he didn't get the problem. "And I'm just not sure which group Mal ought to be in."

Trip blinked. "Oh. _Oh_." He glanced over at Mal, whose expression indicated his fear that he was currently the most unnecessarily difficult form of life in existence. "Um, well, maybe—"

"Maybe," Mal put in timidly, "maybe you could do a picture with just the non-humans—the dogs and Annabel and me."

Ma frowned at him in confusion and Trip jumped in before she could say anything. "Why don't we put Mal with the kids, Ma? I think he'd be more comfortable that way."

Mal threw his arms around Trip. "Oh, Trip, you're _so_ considerate!"

"Yes, I know," Trip agreed, for lack of anything else to say. Except for, "You're getting apple on me."

"Oh, sorry."

"Shady, are we done with pictures?" Katie called over, though she knew perfectly well that they weren't.

"No," Ma replied, pushing past Trip and Mal to resume her place. "We're gonna get all the grandkids now. And Mal."

A few eyebrows raised at that, but no one said anything. Mal, happily oblivious, headed to the photo area again, dragging Trip behind him. "Okay, you know _I_ won't be in this picture, right, Mal?" he pointed out.

"Oh. Right." Reluctantly Mal released Trip's hand.

"I _will_ hold your apple, though," the engineer added, plucking the unsightly, half-eaten fruit away. Mal seemed concerned about its fate. "I'll save it for you. Promise."

"Okay, how shall we do this…" Ma muttered to herself. "Chaz, you stand here, Connery here, Emmaline over here, Annabel here, and Mal—why don't you sit here and hold the baby?"

Obviously Ma hadn't been paying attention earlier. "Oh no," Mal protested, backing away. "We've already tried that. The _baby_ doesn't like me. She doesn't like me at all!"

"Mal, dear, it's just for a minute—"

"No, no, no, it wouldn't be _safe_ ," Mal insisted, resolute. "What if she leaped from my arms and got stuck in the light fixture? That would be terrible!"

Silence. "Well, it _would_ ," Eddie finally agreed.

"Ma, maybe _you_ could just hold the baby," Trip suggested.

"How about me?" Pop put in eagerly. " _I_ could hold her. Though I can't promise she won't end up in the light fixture anyway…"

"Ha ha," remarked Elaine sarcastically, handing him the infant.

"Perhaps I could hold someone else?" Mal offered, trying to make up for his deficiencies. "I could hold Annabel, or Emmaline, or Connery…"

"You can't hold _me_ ," the boy objected.

"Oh, well, I'm sure I _could_ —" Mal replied, reaching for him.

Connery dodged away. "Mum!"

"I think he just meant that he could, physically, do it," Katie explained to her son, and Trip stared at her, amazed by her understanding.

"Oh, yes, that's all I meant," Mal assured the boy. "Please come back."

"Come on, gather 'round," Ma instructed, arranging everyone. "Um, Annabel, would you mind—"

"Take your wings off, Annabel," Katie told the little girl.

"But I just put them back on!" she whined.

"Annabel, when you're twenty you won't want to see pictures of yourself with those silly wings on," her mother predicted.

"When I'm twenty I'll be _old_ ," Annabel shot back crossly. "I won't even _want_ to look at pictures, I'll be so old!"

The little girl planted her feet. Her mother crossed her arms over her chest. The Christmas morning stand-off was about to begin.

"Um," interrupted Mal. "Suppose that I just knelt right here, with my arm like this… you couldn't really _see_ the wings then, could you?"

"Looks okay to _me_ ," Eddie confirmed.

"Yeah, I don't see any wings," Trip agreed.

"Well take the picture then," Ma decided, before something else happened.

Katie seemed to feel that she was being undermined, but even she had to admit that the wings were mostly camouflaged. "Fine."

"Everybody say… goats on a stick!" tried Steve cheerfully.

"What?" asked Mal, turning to Ma. Groans echoed around the room.

 

“Alright, time to go!”

“Come on, we have to get moving!”

“Did we remember everything?”

“Presents?”

“Yes!”

“Food?”

“Yes!”

“Pictures?”

“Yes!”

“Where’d the baby go?”

“Um… I’m not sure…”

“Eddie!”

“Well, she can’t have gone far, she can’t even crawl yet—“

“I’ve got her!”

“Oh, good.”

“Are we ready yet?!”

“I want to ride with Mal!”

“Me too!”

“Me too!”

“I want to ride with Trip!”

“Well _there’s_ a surprise.”

“How many transports are we taking?”

“Two?”

“Three, at least.”

“Four might be better…”

“Okay, come on, out the door! I really mean it!”

“What about the dogs?”

“I don’t want any dogs to ride with us!”

“Hush!”

“Well, I don’t…”

“Has everyone been to the bathroom?”

“No!”

“No!”

“Can I go again?”

“Honestly, it’s not a very long trip.”

“What?”

“No, not _Trip_!”

“Oh.”

“Okay, I’m ready!”

“I’m ready!”

“I’m ready!”

“Well get out the door, then!”

Trip stood off to the side, letting relatives and dogs file past on the way out. He tapped Mal on the shoulder and pulled him out of line as the other man started to exit the house. “What are you doing?”

Mal looked at him in confusion. “I’m going out to the transport. Um, aren’t I?”

“What’s that?” Trip nodded at the object Mal cradled in his arms.

“It’s my pineapple. You gave it to me!”

“I _know_ that,” Trip told him. “But why are you holding it?”

“I’m taking it to Granny’s…” Mal’s tone was uncertain. Trip gave him a look. “Katie said we could take _one_ of our new toys to Granny’s!”

“Okay, first of all, she was only talkin’ to the kids, of which you are not one,” Trip explained to him with a slight amount of exasperation. “Second, a pineapple isn’t a _toy_. It’s not gonna travel well. Why don’t you take that logic game data chip with you?” he suggested, to head off the protest he saw in Mal’s eyes. “You can play it if you get bored.”

“But that’s _your_ present, Trip—“

“Oh, come on, buddy, it was really for _you_ ,” Trip pointed out with a bit of a smile. “Eddie thought you might like it, since you unsnarl all that scheduling stuff each quarter.”

“Oh. Well, I _did_ wonder a bit, when you opened it, since you usually don’t like that sort of thing,” Mal admitted.

“So why don’t you take that instead, and leave the pineapple here?” Trip encouraged again.

Mal thought this over for a few moments, gazing pensively down at his pineapple. Trip tried to be patient, even though he knew people were gathering outside, waiting on them. But he wanted Mal to come to the decision on his own, not just do whatever Trip told him.

“I suppose…” Mal began slowly, “if I brought my pineapple, someone might think I meant it as a gift for _them_. Do you think so?”

“I think that _is_ a risk.”

“Well, alright,” Mal finally determined.

“Great,” Trip told him, squeezing his arm. “Run the pineapple back upstairs. I’m gonna go warm up the transport.”

 

“Hey hey hey, didn’t you _see_ me?! Are you _blind_?! Get your sensor array repaired, pal! J‑‑‑s! What kinda cheap navigation programs have they got these days?”

Ma looked sideways at her eldest son. “Why don’t you just get back on the nav grid, dear? It’s all highway to your grandmother’s.”

“Too slow,” Trip insisted, punching some alternate coordinates into the transport’s computer. “If I go on auto we’ll get stuck in this whole herd of travelers.” He ducked his head, trying to see out every window at all the other transports that bobbed in mid-air around them along the popular route.

“Can’t we have some candy, Uncle Trip?” little voices cajoled from the back, not for the first time.

“Your ma said no,” Trip reminded them, dodging a few vehicles. “It’ll spoil your lunch. What’d you even bring it for? Get out of the way, moron! D—n low-grade stabilizers—“

“Ooh, Uncle Trip said a bad word!”

“Hee hee, we’re gonna tell Mummy!”

“ _Please_ can we eat some candy?”

“No! And don’t repeat anything I say to your mother,” Trip warned. Whines and complaints met his ruling, and he glanced at his own mother. “Help me out a little here, Ma.”

She looked up from her novel. “Go on auto,” she advised coolly. “Then you can deal with them yourself.”

“What the h—l?! Stay in your own lane, g-------t!” The transport rocked unsteadily as Trip made a sudden maneuver.

“Trip,” his mother admonished him. “There’s no reason to hurry. There’s gonna be plenty of food, after all!”

“But we’re hungry _now_ ,” moaned the backseat passengers.

“Just a little candy!”

“We won’t eat too much!”

“We won’t spoil our lunch!”

“Fine,” Trip snapped. He was more focused on the manual reroute of navigation sensors he was performing, one-handed, while simultaneously piloting the vehicle. “Knock yourselves out. Stuff yourselves until you puke.”

“Hooray!”

“Thanks, Uncle Trip!”

Ma tsked while keeping her eyes on her novel.

“There, you see?” Trip told her triumphantly, as the transport soared away above the others. “ _Now_ we’re gonna make some progress, if I can just keep these approach vectors aligned—“ A bag of candy was dangled suddenly in front of Trip’s face and he batted it away instinctively. “J---s!”

“You see how he’s always talking about Jesus?” Mal remarked to the children. “ _I_ thought it was just random swearing, but it turns out he’s really calling upon a superhero!” Trip tried to ignore that comment and focus on driving. “Oh, Trip, I meant to ask—can I eat this, please?”

“What? Eat what?” The ill-placed bag of candy reappeared. “Get that outta my face!”

“Well can I eat it?” Mal persisted.

“What is it?” Trip was trying to program a couple of Travis’s navigation subroutines into the transport’s main computer, from memory.

“You’re gonna have to restore the factory defaults before you turn this thing back in, you know,” Ma warned. “They’ll charge you an arm and a leg otherwise.”

“Thanks, Ma, I know.”

“Chocolate-covered something,” Mal cut in.

Trip frowned. “What? Chocolate-covered what?”

“Chocolate-covered what?” Mal asked one of the children. “Oh. _Almonds_.”

Trip looked back at Mal over his shoulder for an instant, then whipped back around as the transport’s proximity alarms blared, twisting the vehicle away from an aerial beacon. “G-----n traffic signals, why’d they put them so close to the cars—and Mal, _no_ , you can’t eat that, are you stupid?!”

“Trip Tucker, don’t you call him stupid!” Ma admonished. She turned to look back at Mal and the children. “Mal, almonds are nuts, dear. Give them here.” Mal meekly handed the bag over.

“Oh, _now_ you intervene, thanks,” Trip grumbled sarcastically.

“Are you this grouchy when you fly that big ship of yours?” Ma asked pointedly.

“I don’t usually fly it while people are throwing food at me!” he shot back.

“I wasn’t _throwing_ the candy,” Mal protested petulantly, leaning over the seat to look at Trip. “And anyway, you fly shuttlepods when people are _shooting_ at them, I would think _that_ —“

The proximity alarm again. “Get the f—“

“Charles Robert Tucker!” thundered Ma. “You put this vehicle on auto _right now_. And you watch your language around the children.”

Faced with Ma’s steely glare, Trip had little choice but to obey, though he did so with ill grace. A few flipped switches and grudgingly-entered commands later and the transport beeped smugly at him and returned to the mass of vehicles below. Where it promptly became lodged in the Christmas Day traffic congestion and hovered to a halt.

“Great, just great,” Trip exclaimed with a mirthless chuckle. “See, I _told_ you!”

“Don’t you take that tone with me, young man,” Ma replied, quiet but firm.

Trip quailed under her gaze. “Uh, sorry, Ma…”

A colorful candy worm dropped down in front of his nose. “Can I eat _this_ now, please?”

“Yes, Mal, go ahead, eat the gummy worms,” Trip sighed, slouching back helplessly in his seat.

“Should’ve brought a book,” his mother added dryly.

           

Three times Trip had explained to Katie that they were stuck in traffic—no, her children hadn’t been in an accident; no, they hadn’t been abducted; no, Trip hadn’t taken them joyriding off somewhere. The fourth time she called, he turned the screen over to Ma. The fifth time, he let _Mal_ explain the situation, and after that Katie stopped calling.

By the time their transport finally pulled into the driveway of Granny’s house, Trip was pretty certain the kids had consumed enough sugar to ruin not only lunch but also the next several meals as well. Although _they_ didn’t seem to think so.

“I hope all the cookies aren’t gone yet!” Connery shouted upon exit.

“We’re not _that_ late,” Trip insisted. “They might not even have started eating.” He was about to jog up the front steps behind the children and Ma when he noticed someone was missing and looked back at the transport. Mal was standing frozen beside it, gazing with trepidation at the large, unfamiliar house surrounded by transports, every vehicle having spewed forth new crowds of people he didn’t know. Trip sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. After the unnecessarily stressful journey to Granny’s house—which he was willing to admit was _partially_ his fault, possibly—he had little patience left in his reserves to coax Mal inside.

Fortunately someone else decided to take on the job this time. “Come on, Mal,” Annabel encouraged brightly, her wings bobbing as she skipped back to Mal and grabbed his hand. “You can come in with _me_!”

“Well thank you, Annabel, that’s very nice of you,” Trip told her, grinning a little. He stood back and let the two of them go ahead of him into the house. Mal gave him an apprehensive gaze over his shoulder, but Trip just smiled and shrugged in response. Annabel had the other man firmly in her grip, after all.

The little girl paused in the large, two-story foyer just inside the door, glancing speculatively around the bustling interior. “Come on, let’s go this way,” she decided confidently, tugging Mal along. “We have to say hello to Geega. She’s going to give me a present, you know.”

“Who?” Mal asked in confusion as they threaded through the clusters of chatting people. He could at least take comfort in the fact that Trip was not too far behind them.

“Mummy’s grandma,” Annabel explained, as if it should be obvious. “This is her house, silly.”

“But I thought this was Granny’s house,” Mal told her, frowning. “Trip said we were going to Granny’s house.”

Annabel gave this some thought as she continued to pull Mal through the Christmas-decorated rooms. “I think they’re the same person,” she finally decided.

“Oh.”

“Geega!” Annabel exclaimed, approaching a silver-haired woman in a festive red dress.

The woman had been talking to someone else, someone Mal didn’t recognize, but this person was instantly dismissed when the oldest Mrs. Tucker spotted her great-granddaughter. “Well, hello there, Annabel,” she greeted, bending slightly. “Your Uncle Trip didn’t take you all to a bar for a few drinks before coming here, did he?”

Annabel giggled. “No, Geega! We just got stuck in traffic!”

“Pity,” the older woman sighed, straightening. “He could’ve brought some for _me_.” She gave Mal a keen once-over. “And who is this?”

Mal opened his mouth to reply but Annabel beat him to it. “This is Mal. He’s Uncle Trip’s friend.”

“Oh ho,” Mrs. Tucker remarked knowingly.

“He’s an elf, and I’m a fairy!” Annabel concluded, shaking her glittery wings for emphasis.

“I would’ve thought it was the other way around, dear,” Mrs. Tucker replied, patting the little girl’s head.

“Granny!” Trip exclaimed, scandalized. He shouldered through one last clump of relatives and joined them.

His grandmother waved off his reaction as she gave him a kiss on the cheek and allowed him to give her one as well. “Dear me, you’re rather pale, aren’t you?” she assessed. “You should get out in the sun more.”

“Captain frowns on sun-bathing on the outer hull of the ship, Granny,” Trip pointed out.

“I’m goin’ to find Mummy now,” Annabel announced, releasing Mal’s hand and trotting off.

“She’s getting chubby, don’t you think?” Granny commented, watching the little girl leave.

Trip rolled his eyes. “Geez, Granny, how old does she have to be before you’ll tell her that to her face?”

“Eh, haven’t decided,” Granny shrugged. “So tell me about your funny little friend here.”

“He’s not _funny_ , he—“ Okay, so Mal kneeling beside them in the middle of a crowded room _did_ look a little odd. Trip grabbed the back of his collar to pull him back up. “Mal, this is my grandmother. Granny, this is Mal. Mal is my _friend_ , and a very important member of _Enterprise_ ’s crew.”

“Hello,” said Mal quietly, not making eye contact.

Granny took his chin firmly in her hand and lifted it, much to his surprise. “Don’t mumble,” she advised him. “Stand up straight. Look at the person you’re speaking to. My goodness, you _are_ rather good-looking, aren’t you?” she judged, turning his face back and forth. “Definitely _not_ a Tucker, though.”

“Granny,” Trip warned.

“Totally different bone structure,” Granny pointed out.

“Totally different _species_ ,” Trip shot back. “Is that alright with you?” His tone was rather sarcastic.

Granny gave him a look. “Well, I think your cousin Auden’s wife is very nice, and _she’s_ a Yankee,” she said by way of reply. “Go have something to eat, you two,” she declared, dismissing them.

Trip rolled his eyes and took Mal’s hand. “Come on, buddy. Talk to you later, Granny!”

“She seems nice,” Mal remarked, and Trip glanced at him seeking signs of sarcasm. “She said we could eat!” Trip just shook his head.

Trip and Mal wound through the crowd, the dark-haired man sticking close to his companion amid the noise of conversation and conflicting holiday music. Occasionally Trip would stop and greet someone, or be stopped and greeted by someone else—Cousin this, Uncle that, Aunt etc.—and after a moment he would politely disengage and press on, promising to chat with the person more later. Usually he meant it, but occasionally he didn't; and after they'd pulled away he would fill Mal in on what Trip considered the relevant facts of that person's life, most of which made very little sense to Mal.

At last Trip spotted the person he was _really_ looking for, sitting in a knot of older fellows out by the pool. "Granddad!" he said jovially, and several of the white-haired men turned at the sound of his voice. "Don't get up, don't get up," Trip insisted to the one who had recognized him as a grandson.

He leaned down to give the older man a hug. "Charles Robert Tucker the Third," Granddad proclaimed proudly, thumping Trip on the back.

"Charles Robert Tucker the First," Trip sent back with a grin. "How've you been?" He knelt beside the chair so the older man didn't have to constantly gaze upwards. For once Mal kneeling beside him didn't look strange at all.

"Kickin' along," Granddad replied with a satisfied shrug. "Can't complain _too_ much, don't want to put your grandmother out of a job."

Trip grinned. "Say, Granddad, I want you to meet someone. This is Mal."

"Hello," said Mal politely. He had never seen such a very _old_ man before. Granny had been the oldest _woman_ he'd ever seen, that he knew of, but she appeared sharp and straight and well-groomed. In contrast Granddad looked like he just wanted to be comfortable and have a good time, even if it meant a few more wrinkles and a good deal less hair. Mal was particularly intrigued by the hair that seemed to sprout from strange places, like his ears.

"Well, hello back," Granddad replied to Mal. "So you're the fella who's been savin' Trip's life out there in space, huh? Well good job."

"Thank you," Mal told him, blushing faintly. "It's just what I do."

"Here here here," the older man said suddenly, digging into the pocket of his khaki pants. "I've got some of that candy you like so well, Trip… Now where did that go…"

Trip kept a pleasant expression on his face but Mal could feel the small amount of dismay. "Oh, no, that's okay," he assured his grandfather quickly. "Thanks, Granddad, but Mal and I were just gonna go get some munchies—"

"Here you go!" Granddad produced a slightly mangled sweet with some pocket lint on the wrapper. "I remember when you were just a little fella, you couldn't get enough of these," he reminisced. Trip took the candy with a dubious smile, unable to do anything else. "Why, you'd eat a whole bagful if I'd let you, do you remember that? You were no bigger than knee-high to a grasshopper…"

"A grasshopper?" Mal interjected with confusion. "Like in Ma's fancy party mix?"

Granddad stopped talking to blink at him, but Trip couldn't hope the pause would last long. "Uh, never mind," the engineer said quickly. "Thanks for the candy, Granddad. We'll talk to you later, okay?"

"Alrighty," Granddad agreed. "Nice to meet you, Mal. Keep up the good work, alright?"

"Yes, Granddad, I shall try," Mal promised. Trip stood, patted his grandfather on the shoulder affectionately, then headed back inside with Mal in tow.

"Don't you want the candy he gave you?" Mal inquired curiously, once he judged they were at a safe distance.

"Actually I'm not real fond of this stuff anymore," Trip admitted, looking down at the candy with distaste. "Haven't been since I was about, oh, ten or so. Probably because Granddad would let me eat a whole bag of it, then I'd be sick on it."

Mal grimaced at the description. But curiosity overcame him. "Hmm. What is it? Can _I_ try it? Would I like it?"

"Well," Trip replied, giving Mal a sideways glance, "it's just a caramel. But it's probably been in his pocket since the last time he saw me, which was three years ago."

"Oh," Mal responded, rapidly losing interest in the treat.

"Yeah," Trip agreed. "Granny's got some snacks out somewhere, I'm sure. And we'll be having lunch before too long."

"Trip! Trip Tucker, is that _you_ , darlin'?"

Trip stopped, plastered a smile on his face, and turned around. "Aunt Tammy! How are you?"

A heavily made-up woman in a bright turquoise dress that was far too young for her approached Trip eagerly and threw her arms around him, then popped him back out to arm's length to look him over. "You are lookin' so good!" she declared. "Life on that space station must agree with you!"

"Starship, Aunt Tammy," Trip corrected lightly. "It's a starship."

"Oh, of course, how could I forget!" the woman laughed, the multiple bracelets on her arms clacking together loudly. "You've got that fine-lookin' man as your Captain…" She glanced around suddenly. "Say, did you bring him back with you this year?" she asked eagerly. "I'd sure like to say hello, get reacquainted…"

"No, sorry, Aunt Tammy," Trip informed her, trying not to snicker. "He's in San Francisco right now, I think."

"That's too bad," Aunt Tammy sighed, greatly disappointed. "Well, you tell him I said hello, alright?"

"I'll do that," Trip assured her, and the woman left, having found another relative to pounce on. "That was Aunt Tammy," Trip commented to Mal when she was out of earshot.

"Oh."

_I didn't introduce you because, well, she's a grabber._

"A what?"

Trip sent a mental picture of Aunt Tammy pinching Jon's rear the time he'd come to family Christmas with Trip. Mal covered his mouth with his hand and giggled for quite some time.

When he had recovered the two of them continued weaving through the crowd in search of food. Fortunately, once they got away from the "fancy" rooms of the house, trays of cookies, cheese, fruit slices, and other snacks began appearing.

"This isn't a wilderness expedition," Trip pointed out when he saw Mal stockpiling cookies in a napkin. "There's plenty of food available." Mal blinked at him, then folded the napkin carefully and stowed it in his pocket anyway. Trip rolled his eyes and moved on to the next tray.

"What are these?" Mal asked dubiously, regarding the new snack offerings.

"Deviled eggs!" Trip happily scooped up one of the treats and disposed of it in two bites. "Tastes like Uncle Porter's. Yummy."

"Deviled eggs," Mal repeated slowly, examining the food item carefully. "I bet Jesus doesn't like _those_."

Trip snorted. "Careful, you're gonna sound like Ma's side before long," he warned. "They call 'em 'party eggs' just to be safe. Pentecostal." He realized Mal of course didn't understand what he was talking about, but to be honest Trip feared the explanation would upset him. Either that, or Mal would insist upon witnessing a church service in which people spoke in tongues. "Uh, anyway, it's just a hard-boiled egg," he continued, picking up another one for Mal to touch. "You scoop the yellow part out, mix it with spices and stuff, and put it back in, see?"

"It looks rather wobbly," Mal told him, eyeing the solidified egg white.

"Well, you don't have to eat it," Trip reminded him. "But you might as well try a bite, don't you think?"

Mal took a very small nibble from the yolk end and promptly made a face. "No, Trip, I don't like this! It's too wobbly and _eggy_!"

"Okay, okay," Trip shushed, glancing around. "You don't have to eat any more. I'll eat it." And he did. "Come on, let's go see what they've got in the next—" A loud, obnoxious laugh from nearby cut Trip off and he rolled his eyes, even more inclined to leave the room.

Mal noticed immediately. "Who's that man over there?" he queried, eyes narrowing.

 _Just Cousin Ron,_ Trip replied silently. _Best to avoid him. Let's go._

But of course it was too late. "Charles Robert Tucker the Third!" boomed a voice, and Trip fixed his expression to one of wary friendliness before he turned around.

"Wow, hey Ron, long time no see," he responded to the burly man, holding out his hand.

He got a slightly excessive punch in the shoulder instead and felt Mal tense beside him. "Well if it ain't the Starfleet poster boy!" Ron declared, and there was more than a little _something_ off-putting in his tone. "How's life in the big bad universe, space cadet?"

"Well, not bad, really," Trip downplayed, trying not to glance around too obviously in search of an escape route. "It's a living."

"Not all it's cracked up to be, huh?" Ron surmised, sounding the tiniest bit gleeful. Trip avoided sighing out loud—there was just no way you could win with Ron. If you complained about something, he wanted to rub it in your face that you'd made a bad choice. If you said things were going well, however, he took it as bragging and accused you of being stuck up. And Starfleet was an _especially_ sore subject, considering Ron had been turned down for a couple of the training corps. "They certainly don't get tired of splashin' you flyboys all over the news."

"Yeah, I'll call the admiral and ask him to stop that," Trip replied smartly. Then before the comment could register with his cousin he turned to the man beside him. "Mal, this is my cousin Ron," he introduced. "Ron, this is my friend and crewmate, Mal." Mal, not sensing friendly vibes from this particular individual, drew himself up with as much dignity as a man holding a plate full of cheese and fruit could.

"Oh, sure, you're the _alien_ , right?" Ron prodded. "The alien _buddy_."

"That's correct," Mal answered coolly. "I'm afraid I've not heard of _you_ , though. What is it that you… _do_?" His expression said he could only imagine it was something distasteful; Trip swore he'd learned that tone from T'Pol.

"Ron works for the utility company," Trip told Mal. _Customer service. Imagine gettin'_ him _when you call with a problem._ "That's right, isn't it?"

Ron glanced between the two men. "Yeah, that's right," he confirmed grudgingly. "Amazed you even remember. Guess there's not much else to think about out there."

"Well nice talkin' to you, Ron," Trip diverted, moving away. "Merry Christmas."

"And happy holidays, in case you're Jewish," Mal added in a generous display of politeness. Trip turned around before the confused expression on Ron's face could make him burst into laughter. "I didn't like that man," Mal whispered as Trip steered him into the next room.

"Yeah, he's kind of an a-s," Trip agreed. "Gotta be a couple in every family, I guess."

Trip had just gotten done convincing Mal that cocktail weenies were perfectly safe to consume and not, in fact, related to wiener dogs like Lizzie's when the announcement went around about lunch starting soon. Trip felt he could have made a meal just of the hors d'oevres, but he wasn't going to argue with more substantial dishes. Granny, never one to dirty herself with the details, had dispatched one of her daughters to spread the word and herd people through to the room where the buffet was laid out.

"Plates, silverware, napkins," Aunt Willa was directing authoritatively. "Drinks over here. Children's table in the kitchen. Everyone else in the Red Room or the Blue Room."

"How do we know which rooms those are?" Mal inquired curiously. "I didn't see any signs…"

Trip gave him a look. "I think you'll know them when you see them. Are you sure you're gonna be okay with—"

"I want to stand with Mal! I want to stand with Mal!" A small bewinged child attached herself to Mal's leg and Trip looked back in line to see his older sister wrestling with her other two children.

"Hello, Annabel," Mal greeted, gazing down on the girl. "Are you enjoying family Christmas?"

"Oh, sure, it's great," she replied, grabbing Mal's hand. "Except it's kind of boring right now. I like it when we open presents."

"My goodness, are there going to be _more_ presents?" Mal asked her.

"Well _sure_ ," Annabel pointed out. "Geega usually gives me _clothes_ though. Which is _boring_. But Mummy says, I must say thank you and smile, no matter what the gift is," she recited diligently.

"Yes, that seems the polite thing to do," Mal agreed. "At least that's what Trip says."

"What are you sayin' about me?" Trip asked, glancing back at them with a mock glare. "It better be something nice!"

"It is, Uncle Trip, _promise_ ," Annabel assured him.

As they drew closer to the food, Trip began to worry. _Uh, are you gonna be okay with the buffet, or…?_

"Of course I shall be fine," Mal replied, as if he had no idea why Trip might think otherwise.

"Mal, can you help me with the food?" Annabel requested. "Mummy always has to help me, because it's so _confusing_ this way."

Mal nudged Trip, who just shook his head. Just because a _six-year-old_ didn't get it, didn't mean it was truly complicated. "I shall be glad to assist you, Annabel," Mal declared proudly. "I know _all_ about buffets now, you see."

Trip grabbed a plate from the stack at one end of the table. "Well, here's your chance to show what you know," he teased Mal.

"Yes, well…" The other man looked at the plates speculatively. "It's _different_ this time, isn't it? I mean, the plates are already _here_ , we don't have to bring them from the table." He frowned. "How will we know where to sit, Trip?"

"I'm eating in the kitchen," Annabel pointed out. "That's where the kids' table is."

"And when I get my food, I'll just look for an empty place at the other tables," Trip explained. " _Two_ empty places," he corrected, and Mal closed his mouth on his question.

"Okay, Mal!" Annabel prompted, tugging on his hand. "See, you have to help me, because I can't reach things. And I might drip."

Mal surveyed the situation. "Alright, why don't you come up here, so you can see what you want?" he suggested, picking the girl up. Quickly they realized that this left only one hand to somehow both hold the plate _and_ put food on it, a task which was impossible even for Mal.

" _I_ could hold the plate, and you could put food on it," Annabel offered.

 _Not a good idea,_ advised Trip from in front of them, watching the people behind them in line stream to the other side of the table with looks of confusion at the hold-up.

"I know!" Mal repositioned the girl on his back, her arms clinging around his neck and her legs locked over his stomach. "Do you feel comfortable and secure?"

"Yeah, this is nice!" she decided, surveying the land from this new angle.

Conveniently this gave Mal two free hands with which to obtain food for Annabel. _But what about_ your _lunch, buddy?_

"Oh, I'll come back for mine," Mal decided. He looked at Trip. "There _will_ be enough, don't you think?"

"I think there'll be plenty," Trip assured him.

"Besides," Mal went on, scooping small spoonfuls of various dishes onto the plate, "Annabel is smaller, so she uses up her food faster and needs it sooner." Trip didn't quite follow that logic, but no matter.

"Mal! I don't _like_ those!" Annabel protested.

"But these are _green beans_ ," Mal replied, confused. "See how pointy they are? Don't you like pointy food?"

"I don't like them," she repeated resolutely. "Can't I have more of the cheesy potatoes?"

"Oh, I'm sorry," Mal informed her, "but we've already passed those. One can't go backwards at a buffet." Annabel began to whine and pout, and Trip prepared to intervene. "Now, is that how a fairy ought to act?" Mal questioned her gently. "I'm sure it isn't. There are many delicious things here to eat, after all. Why, look at this! Look how pretty it is!"

"It's salad," Annabel observed, not seeing the appeal.

"It's _spinach_ salad," Mal corrected eagerly, "with _strawberries_. Doesn't that sound yummy? And look—this has all different kinds of _beans_ in it!"

"Are they _magic_ beans?" she asked, mildly suspicious.

"That's one word for it," Trip muttered.

"I expect they are," Mal told her. "In that case, perhaps you oughtn't get any, as I don't know what magic they work—"

"But I want some!" Annabel insisted.

"Well, alright, I suppose a _few_ wouldn't hurt," Mal allowed.

Trip waited patiently for them to finish up, trying to stay out of the way of the other relatives who streamed by. At last Mal and Annabel stepped away from the buffet, their task complete. "Let's go to the kitchen," directed Annabel, pointing to show her mount the way.

"Annabel! Wait a minute!" Trip rolled his eyes as Katie risked leaving Emmaline and Connery alone with the food and approached Mal. "That was very nice of you to help her," Katie told him formally. "Annabel, did you say thank you?"

"Thank you, Mal!" the little girl told him promptly, patting his head. "You're just as good at buffets as you are at stockings!"

Mal flushed faintly. "Oh, well, _Trip_ taught me everything I know, about buffets that is."

The real reason Katie had stopped them, of course, was to examine Annabel's plate. "I just want to make sure you got enough veg—hmmm…" she remarked, looking over the food. Trip suppressed a smug smile. Green beans, spinach salad, broccoli, bean salad, even Aunt Liddy's (in)famous eggplant casserole all had reserved portions of the dish, with only a small amount dedicated to cheesy potatoes, syrupy fruit salad, and rolls. Whether Annabel would actually _eat_ any of the vegetables was another question entirely; but at least they were on the plate. "Well, um, good job," Katie was finally forced to conclude. Annabel and Mal beamed. "Why don't you get down now, dear, and let Mal get in line?"

Katie held the plate while Mal maneuvered the little girl to the floor. "Now, you must carry this quite carefully," Mal charged her solemnly, taking the plate from Katie and handing it to Annabel. Her mother looked like she wanted to object but was forced to hold her tongue as Mal continued. "This food is very special because it's _Christmas_ food. You must hold the plate with both hands, walk slowly, and watch where you're going. Alright?"

Annabel nodded seriously. "Is this what Baby Jesus ate on the First Christmas?" she inquired.

"No, he ate frankincense and myrrh, remember?" Mal reminded her. "I don't know what those are, but Baby Jesus was very poor, so I'm sure they weren't nearly as good as spinach salad with strawberries. Off you go now."

Gripping the plate with both hands, Annabel marched off towards the kitchen. Katie clearly still feared disaster but didn't want to witness it, so she jumped back to the buffet to prevent her son from filling his plate with a massive helping of cheesy potatoes, and to prevent her older daughter from dripping fruit salad syrup all over half the other dishes. Mal watched the little girl depart with the satisfaction of a job well done, then turned back to Trip. The engineer still leaned against the wall holding his plate, a smile on his face.

"Good job, buddy," he complimented, then pushed away from the wall. "Why don't we go find a couple of seats somewhere, then you can get back in line?" Hopefully that would ease Mal's fears about not being able to sit next to Trip, as well as put him closer to the end of the line where fewer people would be inconvenienced by his pickiness.

The nearest dining area was the Red Room—not terribly hard to find after all, given the dark-red-and-gold wallpaper, cherrywood furniture, and red table linens. Besides being, well, extremely _red_ , it was also extremely formal. Not that a gathering of Tuckers could ever really get _that_ formal; but Trip could tell from Mal's expression that this was _not_ a place he'd feel comfortable in if he had to sit at the table. And Mal could tell from Trip that this was _not_ a place where sitting on the floor could be as easily overlooked.

"Let's check out the Blue Room," Trip suggested quickly, ducking out.

The Blue Room was actually nautical-themed, decorated in the aquamarines and storm greys of the ocean. Trip figured any room that boasted a gold-plated ship's anchor as a focal point couldn't possibly be that formal, but he had the feeling Mal wouldn't see it that way. The whine in the back of his throat as he clutched Trip's arm kind of gave it away.

Trip stepped back, out of the flow of traffic, and tried to come up with an alternative idea. "How would you feel about eating in the kitchen with the kids?"

Mal bit his lip nervously. "Won't there be strange children there?"

"Well, yeah," Trip agreed. "But Connery and Emmaline and Annabel will also be there, and, I don't know, maybe Eddie or Elaine if it's time to feed the baby. And surely strange kids are better than strange adults," he added persuasively.

Mal gave this some thought. The various scents of the untouched food on Trip's plate wafted up to the engineer's nose, making his mouth water. Yet he tried to wait patiently. "But _you're_ going to sit in here," Mal remarked, glancing at the Blue Room.

Well, there was no point in Trip denying that. "Yeah, I guess I was hopin' to," he admitted. "I'd like to keep catchin' up with folks. But if you really want—"

"No, I think it will be okay," Mal decided.

"You're sure?"

"Yes," he reiterated, more firmly.

Trip smiled gratefully. "Okay then. I'll see you after lunch, alright?" Somehow, Trip felt Mal would be a big hit in the kitchen.

His observation half an hour later seemed to confirm this, as he leaned in the kitchen doorway watching Mal quiz the rapt children—and a couple of bemused parents—on the basics of proper nutrition. "Now, what food group does _this_ belong to?" he asked, holding up a roll.

"I know, I know!" insisted one little girl. " _Soft_!"

"Very good," Mal rewarded, giving her the roll. "What about these?" A forkful of green beans.

"Pointy?" suggested a boy almost too young to pronounce the word.

"Excellent!" Mal declared, feeding him the vegetables. The woman sitting beside the little boy, presumably his mother, patted his head fondly, and Trip imagined that the child had never willingly consumed something green before in his life. "Now this one might be difficult…" He speared some spinach salad.

"Soft?"

"Leafy?"

"Green?"

"Fruit!"

"Very good, Emmaline!" Mal told her. "Here you go."

"Spinach isn't fruit, it's a vegetable," Connery tried to explain. "It's a vegetable, isn't it, Uncle Eddie?" Wisely Eddie chose to merely rock the sated, sleeping Astraia and stay out of the debate.

"But the strawberries _in_ the spinach are fruit," Emmaline shot back. The older boy rolled his eyes and heaved his patented 'why me' sigh.

"Glad to see you guys are gettin' some education in," Trip cracked, grinning at them all.

 

Mal wandered into the busy room, looking around for somewhere appropriate to place himself for a little while as Trip 'made the rounds' visiting with people, an activity which tended to just confuse Mal. He wasn’t sure which room of the large house he was actually in; it was the one with windows that looked out over the front lawn, and it had the tree decorated all in white and silver. There might be a little corner Mal could wedge himself into, he hoped, or maybe he could find—Aha, there was Lizzie, sitting on the couch talking to someone. Mal went to her immediately.

"Hello, Lizzie," he greeted, dropping to his knees before her. He squirmed in between her feet. "Should you like to pet me for a short while?"

"Well sure I would, cutie!" Lizzie grinned, ruffling his hair. Mal made himself comfortable while Lizzie traded giggles with the person seated next to her. "This is our cousin Terri. Terri, this is Mal, Trip's _friend_."

"Hello, Cousin Terri," Mal said, resting his head on Lizzie's lap. "Are you going to eat _all_ those cookies?" He indicated the plate the other woman balanced.

"Guess not," Terri decided as Lizzie took one.

"Would you like a cookie, Mal?"

"It doesn't have nuts in it, does it?" he asked suspiciously, pulling back slightly.

"I don't think so," Lizzie replied, examining the treat. "It's just chocolate chip."

"Okay, then!" Lizzie fed him the cookie and scratched behind his ear. Mal's feet twitched in pleasure.

"Careful, Steve's gonna get jealous," Terri teased.

"Oh, trust me, Steve gets _plenty_ of attention," Lizzie replied with a snicker. "Did I tell you how we met? Well, I was at this resort in Miami, and…"

Mal closed his eyes and let the flood of conversation wash over him. The large family gathering was overwhelming, to be sure, and sometimes he found it helpful to concentrate on specific sensations instead of the chaos of the whole room: Lizzie's hand in his hair, the cookie in his mouth, the fabric of her skirt under his cheek. Tuckers usually produced three or four offspring each, it seemed, and they frequently lived long enough to see the fourth generation—and they all converged on the house of Charles and Cailyn Tucker on Christmas Day, per tradition. Mal had lost count of how many aunts, uncles, cousins, great-aunts, great-uncles, second cousins, first cousins once removed, and so forth he'd met today. He remembered everyone Trip himself had pointed out, of course.

The concept of a family bound by blood ties and emotional commitments was foreign to Mal; he knew nothing of his own biological family, and he wasn't particularly interested in finding out more. This had always struck Trip as strange, and now Mal could see why—biological family was ever-present in the Tucker life. Most of them even still lived in the same general geographic area. But the bond between _kaldin_ and _ragnish_ was the strongest in Viridian society; Mal had read that over and over again in the database. It trumped that of siblings, of mates, of parents and children. So even surrounded by the masses of Tuckers whom Trip was glad to see, to recollect with, to receive support from, Mal wasn't envious. All he had was Trip, but Trip was all he needed.

Humans didn't seem to be so exclusive in their support network, however. Mal knew that not every human family was as large or close-knit as the Tuckers—Captain Archer, for example, was an only child whose father was dead; he had only a handful of relatives he'd be seeing over the holidays—but almost all humans seemed to have _some_ family, or to _want_ some at least. A significant other, for example, or children to carry on their ideals. Again, Captain Archer—a man who had always worked so hard to fulfill the goals of his father. And you certainly couldn't name your child Charles Tucker III without putting the weight of two previous Charles Tuckers squarely on his shoulders, or the expectation of him producing a Charles Tucker IV—no matter how much the _Third_ insisted that people did not, in fact, harass him about creating a _Fourth_.

Human relationships seemed complex and convoluted to Mal. Fortunately, he had one person, and one person only, to focus on. Gently Mal dislodged himself from Lizzie's lap and stood. "Thank you very much, Lizzie," he told her politely. "But Trip wants to see me now."

Trip was in the kitchen, talking to his grandparents, when Mal appeared and propped himself up in a chair at the table. "Well, there you are, buddy," Trip said cheerfully, ruffling his hair. "What have you been up to?"

"Oh, Lizzie was petting me," Mal replied off-hand. "And feeding me cookies." He eyed a relish tray in the middle of the table. "Is that food?"

Trip pushed it closer to him. "It's olives and pickles and stuff," he warned. "Salty, sour things. Bet you won't like it." Mal decided to see for himself. "So did I hear someone say Cousin _Alfred_ was pregnant? _Alfred_?" he asked of his grandparents.

Granny rolled her eyes. "Don't know _what_ the world's comin' to, men gettin' pregnant," she remarked disdainfully.

 _Not. A. Word_ , Trip thought firmly to Mal, who was busy sniffing at an olive.

"Used to be, when you couldn't have a baby the old-fashioned way, you'd do something sensible like grow it in a lab," Granny continued. "But oh no, that wasn't good enough for Alfred--"

Trip knew the moment Mal popped the olive into his mouth, because the other man suddenly clutched his arm, clearly distressed but also clearly trying hard not to make a scene. And failing miserably, of course. "I told you, you wouldn't like it," Trip reminded him, holding a napkin up to his mouth. "Spit it out." Mal tongued the olive out into the napkin, which Trip wadded up and tried to tuck aside discreetly.

"It was so _sour_ ," Mal pointed out, mouth still puckering. "And it tasted like metal, too! That's just not _right_!"

"Aw, come on," teased Trip, sliding his glass of iced tea towards Mal. "How do you know what metal tastes like?" Mal hesitated to grab the glass until Trip removed the lemon wedge from the side. Then he guzzled the dark liquid down greedily, eager to rid his mouth of the unpleasant olive taste.

Trip turned back to his grandparents with an expectant look, encouraging them to ignore this minor distraction and continue with the discussion. "Saw a special about, er, male pregnancy on one of the educational networks," Granddad went on. "Not Cousin Alfred, of course, just in general. So what they do is, they take out a bunch of your internal organs—stuff you don't really need, or need so many of—then they stick the baby in inside a bag and sew you back up!"

"I'm sure it's a _little_ more complicated than that," Trip hoped, disturbed yet fascinated at the same time.

"Then you just shoot the fella full of hormones all the time and _voila_! Instant baby oven!" Granddad shook his head with a grin. "Ain't science grand?"

"Bunch of nonsense if you ask me," Granny opined, never letting the fact that no one _had_ asked stop her. "It's annoying enough to listen to some woman moan about her food cravings and how many bathroom breaks she takes each day, like she's the first person in the history of the world to have a baby. But a _man_ …! It's ten times worse!"

Granddad patted her hand. "Not that your grandmother has an opinion on the subject at all."

"No, of course not," Trip chuckled. Out of the corner of his eye he spied Mal sitting very still—never a good sign—and turned to see a pensive expression on his face. Instantly Trip knew what he was thinking. _No._

"But I could—"

_No._

"Hmm, but I think—"

_No!_

"Oh, but Trip—"

_No, Mal!_

Trip's grandparents stared at them in bemusement and Trip tried to shrug it off. "So, uh, how's Aunt Mabel, I heard something about a ski instructor—"

"Trip, _I_ could have a baby for _you_!" Mal suggested excitedly, shaking Trip's arm.

"Um, well, that's a sweet thought, buddy," Trip began, glancing at his grandmother's Vulcan-like arched brow, "but it's not really practical, or necessary—"

"I'm _sure_ I've got all _kinds_ of things inside me that don't need to be there!" Mal went on. "Dr. Phlox could just scoop them out and put a baby in instead!"

"Dr. Phlox is the physician on _Enterprise_ ," Trip explained, in a valiant attempt at distraction. _We'll talk about this later. Shut up now._ "He's Denobulan. Have either of you ever met a Denobulan?"

"And then I could take care of the baby," Mal continued heedlessly. "Wouldn't that be _wonderful_? A little baby Trip to love and clean and cuddle!"

"You _are_ a funny little man, aren't you?" Granny remarked.

"Oh, I think it's nice," Granddad countered. "Save Trip here the trouble of getting married, or even dating. And he'd get babysitting service to boot!"

Trip rolled his eyes. "Mal, you're not gonna have a baby for me. Captain Archer wouldn't let a baby stay on the ship—you'd have to leave to take care of it."

Mal narrowed his eyes at the other man. "A baby wouldn't be any more trouble than Porthos," he protested. "I'm sure of it."

"Porthos is the Captain's beagle," Trip told his grandparents quickly. "Didn't, uh, Uncle Kirby have a beagle?"

"Dalmatian," Granddad answered dryly. "But it's easy to get those mixed up."

"I'm sure if your Captain has a beagle on the ship, a mere _baby_ would be perfectly acceptable," Granny encouraged mischievously, glancing at Mal. Trip glared at her.

"And I would take _such_ good care of Baby Trip the Fourth, no one else would have to worry about him," Mal agreed confidently.

"Mal, you don't even _like_ babies, you freaked out when you held Astraia for two minutes this morning," Trip reminded him with exasperation.

Mal did not see that as an impediment. "Astraia didn't like _me_ ," he corrected Trip. His expression became positively dreamy. "But Baby Trip the Fourth would be different. He would _love_ me, and I would _love_ him, and he would be the smartest, handsomest, sweetest, cleanest baby in the whole entire universe—"

"Mal, please," Trip interrupted. "You're embarrassing me." Indeed, he was looking slightly pink, much to his grandmother's glee. "Put it out of your head, okay?"

"Well, I'm just going to ask Dr. Phlox about it when we get back," Mal decided in a very determined tone. "We'll just see." Trip sighed in defeat.

 

Mal found Eddie in the back corner of a rare empty room in the otherwise crowded, noisy house. He couldn't imagine what sort of room it was supposed to be—there was a desk off to one side, but surely no one could concentrate enough to get any work done here, not with all the… animals staring out from their various shelves and perches. Mal adored his Chitter-Blue-Hamster-Poogle-Pudding-Trip; but _these_ animals—pointy-beaked birds, quadrupeds with sharp claws and teeth, bodyless heads with large protruding horns—looked neither soft nor cuddly.

"It's rather grisly in here, don't you think?" Mal commented, starting to reach towards one big-eyed bird before he thought better of it.

Eddie looked up from his chair near the fireplace, obviously hoping to have gone unseen. "Yeah, I guess so," he agreed, looking around as if for the first time.

"What are all these creatures for?" Mal questioned, peering closely at some kind of furry grey rodent with a fluffy tail. It rather resembled his own little toy, but he surmised from the glass case surrounding it that he wasn't allowed to touch.

"Um, they're hunting trophies, I guess," Eddie replied uncertainly. "Granddad said people used to hunt lower animals for sport, then display what they'd caught so other people could see it."

Mal wrinkled his nose. "Hunting for sport? They didn't even _eat_ what they caught?"

"Not very often, I don't think," Eddie shrugged.

"Klingons hunt prisoners for sport," Mal mused, coming around to Eddie's location. "But I've never heard of them keeping trophies. Not like these, anyway. And," he added with a frown, "I suppose fishing is much like hunting, and Trip and Pop went fishing, but they _ate_ the fish they captured and I don't remember anyone talking about displaying the remains…"

"I guess all these things belonged to Granddad's grandfather," Eddie elaborated. "Or maybe it was back yet another generation, I forget. But they have some kind of sentimental value for him… They've been here as long as I can remember." With that Eddie went back to his data pad, clearly wishing to be left alone.

Mal wasn't that easily dissuaded, however. Instead of leaving he dropped to his knees at Eddie's feet and leaned forward eagerly. "What are you doing, then? Are you reading a book?"

"Uh, no, actually," Eddie corrected uncomfortably. "I'm trying to write a story, actually."

"Ooh, a story?" Mal repeated with interest. "That's _terribly_ exciting. I didn't know you could write stories. I thought you just taught people how to read."

Eddie smirked a little at that. "Well, I teach literature at the community college, so technically speaking my students should already _know_ how to read. Although," he added dryly, "that doesn't always seem to be the case."

"What sort of story are you writing?" Mal persisted. Eddie squirmed, reluctant to discuss the topic. "Well, I know what sort of story you _ought_ to write," the other man went on instead.

"Oh? What's that?"

"You ought to write a wonderful adventure story," Mal sighed swoonily. "With a bold, dashing, handsome hero and a funny, lovable sidekick, and lots of action and daring escapades but where everything always comes out alright in the end and everyone snuggles up together with fruit and cocoa." Eddie blinked at him, unable to form a response. "I've read a lot of books like that," Mal told him, "but they're all _old_ books. All the modern novels are so dark and dreary and full of unpleasantness. I don't know _what_ sort of person wants to read all _that_."

"Well, I _do_ think you have a point…" Eddie agreed slowly, when he was certain Mal was finished. "The trend in non-genre novels of the last twenty years has definitely been towards a cynical, introspective worldview, which is probably attributable to—" Mal gazed at him politely, but Eddie sensed that he really wasn't getting it. "Um, I think mine _will_ be more on the adventure side," he finished instead.

"How lovely!" Mal complimented him. "But, may I ask, how do you get anything done with all these _creatures_ around? Don't you find them unnerving?" This last part was said in a whisper, in case a stuffed owl or squirrel took exception to his question.

Eddie smiled a little. "Actually I'm pretty used to them. I've always spent a lot of time in this room, from when I was just a little kid—no one wanted to come in here to bother me, I guess."

"Oh, yes, I suppose you and Trip and Lizzie and half of Katie grew up rather nearby, didn't you?" Mal deduced. He liked talking to Eddie. Eddie reminded him of Trip, but more patient. Or perhaps he was more patient because he wasn't on to any of Mal's 'tricks' yet. "You must have spent a lot of time visiting Granny and Granddad."

"Oh yeah," Eddie agreed. "A _lot_ of time."

"This house seems quite large, and full of interesting little nooks and objects," Mal observed. "Is that the sort of place human children enjoy playing in?"

"I guess it depends on the human child," Eddie replied. He smiled a little. "When the four of us used to play together as kids, Katie and Trip would always start arguing about who got to be in charge. Then Lizzie would dance around making fun of them, and me, well… I'd be trying to sneak off somewhere to read a book instead, like here." He gave Mal a slightly sheepish grin. "So I'm afraid the only things I know about dashing heroes having adventures I learned second-hand."

"Then I am quite envious of you," Mal declared sincerely. "I like _reading_ about adventures—when there's a happy ending with snuggling and fruit and cocoa—but _actual_ adventures are really quite terrifying, and often painful as well. I would much rather never have any more at all."

"Seems like you became attached to the wrong person then," Eddie pointed out, not unkindly. "Trip has always been Mr. Adventure."

Mal sighed dramatically. "And he shows no sign of halting that proclivity," he admitted. "Well, anyway," Mal continued, after they had both been quiet for a moment, "I did rather have a point in coming in here, which I'd almost forgotten about in all this excitement about hunting and adventures and cocoa."

"And that is?"

"Oh, I wondered if perhaps you'd like to pet me," Mal offered brightly.

"You came all the way in here just to ask me that?" Eddie said quizzically.

"Well, _no_ ," Mal clarified. "I was quite hoping you would say _yes_ , and then commence petting me. I shan't take offense if you decline," he assured Eddie quickly, when the other man didn't answer right away, "though I must tell you, I think it will be an enjoyable experience for both of us."

"Well, alright," Eddie agreed after a moment. "I guess it wouldn't get in the way _too_ much…"

"How lovely!" Mal arranged himself in his favorite position, with his head on Eddie's lap. "I've been quite eager for you to pet me, I must admit. I'm very curious to see how you do."

"Well, I'll try not to disappoint," Eddie promised, mock-serious. "Is there any particular method you prefer, or…?"

"No, not at all," Mal answered, getting comfortable. "I leave it up to your personal preference. Though if you _could_ manage at some point to scratch behind my ears like you do Gigolo Joe, that would be much appreciated…"

 

"Well _there_ you are," Trip remarked with mild annoyance, walking into the trophy room. Eddie glanced up from his chair by the heater; Mal did _not_ glance up from Eddie's lap. Since Eddie was effectively immobilized at this point by Mal—and didn't Trip know _that_ feeling well—the engineer went to him, shuddering slightly at the stiff, glassy-eyed creatures he passed. "I've never understood how you could hang out in here so much," he commented to his younger brother. "It's just _creepy_."

Eddie powered down his data pad, realizing his quiet writing time had come to an end. "I'm used to it, I guess," he replied mildly.

"Astraia's sure makin' a big hit out there with folks," Trip reported, giving Mal a mental poke. "I think she's the youngest here, isn't she?"

"Probably," Eddie agreed. A corner of his mouth quirked up. "Did I hear something about her spitting up on Granny?"

"How'd you know about that?" Trip asked in surprise. "It was just a few minutes ago. Hilarious, by the way."

Eddie held the data pad up for emphasis. "Modern communication," he pointed out to his older brother with a smile. "I'm kept fully apprised of all baby-related events by her mother."

Trip nodded, then nudged Mal with his foot. "So _that's_ why she lets you wander off," he grinned. "Got you on an electronic leash."

Eddie shrugged. "I don't mind. Means I don't have to hang around the crowds so much."

Trip gestured down at the man who appeared to be out cold in Eddie's lap. "Guess it's too late to keep him from bothering you," he commented, with a hint of an apology.

Eddie continued stroking Mal's hair with his long fingers. "No bother," he assured Trip. "He's… oddly soothing, don't you think?"

Trip didn't. "I guess, if you've got nowhere to go for an hour." He couldn't imagine sitting that still for that long, assuming he was conscious at the time. "Has he been asleep the whole time?"

"Most of it," Eddie confirmed. "We had a nice chat for a few minutes, then he wanted to be petted. Don't think he stayed awake long after that." Something on his older brother's face caught his attention. "Anything wrong?"

"Oh, no, it's nothing," Trip replied, leaning back against the sideboard. The answer was too quick to be entirely truthful, however, and Eddie just gave him an inquiring look. "Well, he just needs his sleep is all," Trip added, still less than convincing. "Want to make sure he gets his nap in."

"From the stories I've heard about him, it doesn't seem like he would really _need_ that much rest," Eddie probed gently. "Or should I chalk that up to Lizzie's exaggerations?"

Trip sighed. He and Lizzie might have the most in common, Katie might know the best ways to irritate him, but Eddie was the one who could read him best. Eddie could read _all_ of them best. "He was sick not too long ago," he finally admitted. "I mean _real_ sick. Like, there was a real good chance you guys were never gonna meet him." It wasn't something Trip enjoyed thinking back on. "He's a lot better now, of course," he added, "but he still gets tired. Doc said to make sure he got plenty of rest." Eddie nodded soberly. "Oh, and don't you dare tell Ma anything about this," Trip warned his younger brother sternly. "Or _anyone_ , really."

"I thought he had… advanced healing abilities?" Eddie asked, slightly confused.

"Yeah, well, they don't take care of everything," Trip told him quickly, straightening up. He saw no point in revisiting the topic on what was supposed to be a happy day. "Whole thing's classified anyway. Hey, Mal." He shook the other man's shoulder gently. "Wake up, buddy, it's time to open presents!"

Mal stirred groggily on Eddie's lap. "What? Is something wrong?"

"No, it's just time to open presents," Trip repeated, trying to sound more enthusiastic. "You like presents, don't you?"

"Mmmm, I don't know," Mal hedged as he started to stretch. "Will the presents be edible, do you think?"

Trip smirked and encouraged Mal to stand, hoping Eddie's legs were still functional. "I'm sure there's some leftovers in the kitchen you can have," he told the other man. "Come on."

Mal stayed facing the younger Tucker brother a moment longer. "Thank you very much for petting me, Eddie," he declared. "It was quite enjoyable."

"No problem," Eddie replied thoughtfully.

 

“This one’s for you, Uncle Trip,” Emmaline reported, depositing a large, flat package on Trip’s lap before dashing off.

“Thanks, sweetie,” he replied, only to find himself talking to the air. He righted the box, looking for the tag to confirm the ownership before he shredded the wrapping paper. Sometimes the kids weren’t too careful when reading the names.

Mal tugged impatiently on his pant leg. “Oh, open it, open it!” he encouraged. “I _love_ presents!”

“ _To Trip and… friend_ ,” he read slowly, frowning. “Thanks, Granny, real personal there,” Trip called across the room to his grandmother, indicating the package. He doubted the older woman had heard anything past ‘thanks,’ and she’d never acknowledge the etiquette breach anyway.

“ _And friend_ ,” Mal repeated thoughtfully, looking at the tag on the box. Then he became rather excited. “Trip… am _I_ your friend?”

“Sure are, buddy,” Trip confirmed, trying to put a positive spin on it as he started to rip off the paper.

“How wonderful! How marvelous!” Mal exclaimed with delight. “I’m your _friend_ , Trip!” He threw his arms around Trip’s waist, nearly knocking the as-yet-unopened box to the floor.

“Well of course you are,” Trip assured him, patting his head with some confusion. “Didn’t you know that?”

“It’s nice to have other people acknowledge it sometimes,” Mal sighed happily against Trip’s stomach.

“Well shall we open _our_ present now or what, friend?” Trip prompted after a moment, grinning down at Mal.

“Okay,” the other man agreed, pulling back. “Would it be alright if I kept the tag, please?”

“All yours.” Trip ripped the bit of wrapping paper the tag was affixed to off and handed it to Mal, who stowed it carefully in a pocket. Then Trip continued removing the wrapping paper, revealing a white cardboard box.

“Oh, it’s so shiny and smooth,” Mal complimented, running his hands over the box’s surface.

Trip gave him a look. “You know the gift is _inside_ the box, right?”

“Yes, of course,” Mal replied promptly. “But it’s a nice box all the same. Think of all the things we could use it for on _Enterprise_!”

“Um, we’re probably gonna leave the box _here_ , buddy,” Trip pointed out gently. “We don’t have infinite storage space on the ship, you know.”

“Oh.” Mal seemed somewhat disappointed but he gamely tried to go along with it. “Okay, that’s alright then.”

Trip shook his head and started to slit the many pieces of adhesive that had been used to keep the box closed. “Don’t make it easy or anything, Granny,” he muttered under his breath.

“D’you want me to—“

“I’ve got it, I’ve got it…” Finally Trip freed three of the box’s four edges and flipped the lid up, to reveal—tissue paper. Mal crowded up for a better view as Trip began to fish through the many layers.

Finally something came into view. And when Trip realized what it was, he felt the urge to slam the tissue paper and lid back down, glue it shut with some kind of heavy-duty sealant, and deposit the entire thing in the nearest recycling bin.

Unfortunately Granny’s hawk eyes were on him before he got the chance. “Hold it up there, Trip,” she ordered, and he had no choice but to comply.

It was a sweater. A striped sweater. Which was not, in and of itself, offensive. But when the stripes were fluorescent orange, lime green, and electric aquamarine, well, the sweater may have gone _in_ the ‘cheerful’ door, but it had definitely come _out_ the ‘crazy’ one instead. And that wasn’t even taking into account the single, prominently situated stripe that alternated between black and white bars. All in all, it looked like a piano keyboard had somehow collided with a beach towel designed by a colorblind, sunstroke-afflicted artist.

Trip held the sweater up higher to cover his face and frantically tried to think of something nice to say to his grandmother about it. Not necessarily because he wanted to be polite; but because she was undoubtedly hoping he wouldn’t be able to contain himself, and she could then pick at him for not being grateful for his gift. Granny was like that. Coming up with a tactful response would be the best way of getting back at her. But for the life of him, Trip couldn’t think of anything positive to say about the monstrosity.

“Oh! It’s so soft!” Trip lowered the… object slightly to see Mal rubbing one of the sleeves against his cheek. “It must be lovely and warm, don’t you think?”

“Absolutely,” Trip agreed, glad the obnoxious pattern hadn’t sent Mal running screaming from the room in a panic, or induced a seizure in him for that matter. “Thanks, Granny, it’s very soft and warm!” Was it his imagination, or did the older woman narrow her eyes at him suspiciously? Well, good.

“Look, look!” Mal said excitedly, digging further into the box. “Look, there’s another one, Trip!”

 _My G-d, it spawned_ , was the first horrifying thought to cross Trip’s mind. Sure enough, Mal pulled out a second sweater, identical to the first, lending credence to the terrifying theory that someone had _deliberately_ constructed these eyesores. Trip had been hoping the one was just some kind of hideous aberration his grandmother had stumbled upon.

“ _Two_ soft, warm sweaters,” Mal was saying, holding the second one up. His expression became pensive. “Should you alternate wearing them on a daily basis, do you think, or should you wear one every day and save the other for special occasions?” And for the life of him Trip could not detect any humor in the man’s face.

“I think, buddy,” he pointed out cautiously, not sure how Mal was going to take this news, “that _one_ sweater is for me, and the other is for _you_. Um, isn’t that right, Granny?” he called quickly.

She nodded from across the room, still hoping Mal at least might give her an amusing scene. “They were on sale, so I figured you could _both_ have one.”

“For _me_ ,” Mal repeated softly, handling the sweater in his lap carefully.

Trip felt uneasy about the pause. “Now, don’t worry about it,” he told Mal. “She’s not expecting a return gift from you or anything—“

Mal looked up at him. “For _me_!” he said again. “A sweater for _me_ , just like _yours_! We can dress alike, Trip! You and I can dress _the same way_!”

He looked so elated at this idea that Trip couldn’t bring himself to point out that 1) dressing the same way as other people wasn’t exactly a novel concept for Trip, who’d been in Starfleet for fourteen years; or 2) they weren’t actually going to be wearing non-regulation clothing all day, every day. Especially not clothing like… _this_. But instead of disabusing him of his optimistic notion, Trip merely smiled and suggested, “Why don’t you hop over to Granny and thank her for us?” That ought to teach his grandmother to play tricks on them.

Mal obeyed immediately, wrapping his arms gently but completely around the startled older woman. “Thank you, _thank you_ , for the soft warm matching sweaters, Granny! And thank you _so much_ for calling me Trip’s friend!”

“You’re a funny little man, aren’t you?” Granny observed again.

“Yes,” Mal sighed happily, resting his head on her lap.

It was obvious to Trip that his non-touchy-feely grandmother had had her fill of thanks and was now ready to pry Mal loose. Mal, however, apparently felt he had not yet fully expressed his gratitude and made himself comfortable on her lap. Seeing that her amused grandson would be of no help, Granny glanced around and spied an appropriate object nearby. “Say, do you like fruit, little fella?”

Mal looked up suddenly. “I _love_ fruit. I love pineapples and apples and grapes and oranges and pears and bananas with the stringy parts removed. The only kind of fruit I don’t like are lemons, because they’re nasty and horrible and sour.”

Granny was finally able to get a word in edgewise. “Well, it’s your lucky day, then.” She reached over the arm of the couch to grasp a tag that dangled from an expertly-packed, sealed basket of fruit that had not yet been distributed to the correct party. Wrinkling her nose slightly at the name on the tag, Granny snapped the identifying information off and tossed it aside. “Here you go. A basket of fruit, just for you. Merry Christmas.”

Mal gasped with shock and delight. “Oh Granny! You’re so generous! Thank you! Are you certain I should take the _whole_ basket?” He was already clutching the handle possessively.

“Take the _whole_ basket,” Granny allowed. “Go back to Trip now, little fella. Go on.” Mal scampered off to show Trip his prize. Now his pineapple wouldn’t be so lonely.

 

Trip sat on the couch, catching up with one of his cousins, and idly wondering where Mal had gotten to. He knew he wouldn't have to wonder for long. A little boy with blond hair—clearly a Tucker offspring—appeared from nowhere and threw himself into his mother's arms next to Trip.

"Whoa, there!" the engineer exclaimed pleasantly, ruffling the boy's hair. "You're Levi, aren't you? How old are you now?"

Levi didn't answer but rather burrowed sleepily into his mother's lap. "He's seven in October," the cousin answered for him, relieved that he seemed willing to snooze instead of running around, bouncing off the walls.

Another figure appeared from nowhere and threw himself into Trip's arms. He was definitely _not_ a natural-born Tucker, but Trip didn't let that bother him. "Hey there, buddy. How are you doin'?"

Mal burrowed sleepily into Trip's lap. "Mmm mmm," he answered vaguely, punctuated by a suspicious giggle.

_You get into the eggnog there, buddy?_

"Just a little bit," Mal confirmed in a nearly inaudible mumble. "Just a tiiiiiiiiny little bit. Hardly more than I gave the children."

Trip shook his head and smirked fondly, scratching behind Mal's ear. It was late afternoon and the gathering was winding down, with people lounging on the couches murmuring to each other instead of standing in clusters talking animatedly. The food had been consumed, the gifts opened, the small talk exchanged; even the children were tired out, with several small figures draped across their parents' laps or at their feet. Trip was just about to send Mal a compliment on how well he'd dealt with all the challenges of the day when a thought suddenly occurred to him.

 _Mal._ He poked the dark-haired man's shoulder until he roused himself a bit. _Mal,_ which _eggnog did you give the kids?_

"The one in the kitchen, of course," Mal replied, voice muffled by Trip's sweater. "Not very considerate, putting it up on a counter that was too high for most of them to reach…"

Trip didn't know whether to be worried or start laughing. _Mal, the eggnog in the kitchen was only for the adults. It's got rum in it._

"Pfffffttt," Mal remarked dismissively. "The adults ate in the dining room, and the children ate in the kitchen. But _now_ you're telling me the eggnog in the kitchen is for the adults, and the"— _Shh! Not so loud!_ Trip ordered him, glancing around nervously—"the eggnog on the dining room table is for the children?" Mal finished, more quietly but without any more concern. "That just doesn't make sense." And with that he put his head back down on Trip's lap and closed his eyes.

Trip's lips twitched as he looked surreptitiously around the room at the children he now saw as _sedated_ more than tired. _How much did they have?_

"Not very much," Mal insisted, starting to become grumpy at the interruption to his nap. "Just a few sips. Nobody else liked it, but _I_ thought it was quite tasty." Trip sighed, weighed the tempers of the affected parents, and decided that in this case, discretion was the better option.

Just when Trip feared he himself might doze off as well, despite _not_ having had any eggnog of any sort, raised voices began to carry through the house, gaining his attention. The voices did not sound entirely civil and, being of a proactive nature, Trip nudged Mal out of the way and went to investigate. The other man trailed close behind him as soon as he sensed Trip's concern.

Trip sighed when he got close enough to identify the voices. Just his luck—Cousin Ron was needling _Steve_ , and Lizzie was nowhere in sight to defend her flavor of the month.

"A _cargo transport pilot_?" Ron remarked, loudly, for perhaps the third or fourth time, as though he found this concept unbelievable. He took a swig from a rather large glass of eggnog—kitchen eggnog, Trip was willing to bet. "Couldn't get into college or _what_?"

Steve gave the thin smile of one trapped with his girlfriend's unpleasant relatives. "Actually, I really like it, I make pretty good money and I get to travel a lot—"

Wrong answer. "Oh, you make pretty good money, huh?" Ron repeated sarcastically. "What, you think I _don't_ make good money? Just because I'm not some kind of flying messenger boy?"

"I have no idea what job you do," Steve tried to explain, actively looking for an escape route. "I'm sure it's a great job—"

"Oh, you're _sure_ , huh?" Ron groused, guzzling the eggnog. "You pilots are all the same, you always think you're better than the rest of us."

"Uh, I don't—"

"Well, I _was_ a pilot, too," Ron asserted, and Trip rolled his eyes at the familiar refrain. "Number two in my flight school! But that just wasn't good enough for Starfleet, no—"

Trip chose this moment to intervene, before he had to hear whatever new insults his cousin had come up with this time. "Steve! There you are!" he announced in an exasperated tone. "Lizzie's got me lookin' all over for you."

"Oh, right," Steve agreed quickly. "Yeah, I better go." He started to turn away from Ron and Trip prayed the other man would for once keep his mouth shut.

But of course he didn't. "And speakin' of those Starfleet types, here's one rushin' in to the rescue!" Ron sneered at Trip. The engineer gave Steve a push back to the interior of the house and tried to follow. "Hey! I'm talkin' to you, Starfleet!" Ron snapped, grabbing for Trip's arm.

He didn't reach it. Before the larger man could make contact Mal had grabbed him by the front of his shirt and hoisted him into the air. Between the shocked expression on the man's face and the ridiculous way he was posed, feet kicking ineffectually in mid-air, Trip really wanted to burst out laughing. But the possibility that this could end badly kept his face straight.

"Mal, it's okay, just put him down, alright?" Trip said, a bit tensely.

"Yeah, put me down, _freak_!" Ron demanded.

Trip's eyes narrowed as he began to be _less_ worried about an unpleasant ending. "You've had too much to drink," he lectured his flailing cousin. "Where's your folks? I think it's time someone dumped you in a transport and sent you home."

"You can't order me around!" Ron sputtered, swinging his fists uselessly. "You're not on one of your fancy starships—"

"I don't like you very much," Mal remarked coolly. Then he flicked his wrist and sent the man flying into the nearby swimming pool.

The splash was terrific. Fortunately Ron surfaced right away, swearing and coughing, so Trip didn't feel the need to jump in and save him. When he started to saunter off dismissively, however, he discovered that they had an audience. An audience of older family members whose reactions were not exactly predictable.

But Trip needn't have worried. "Good job, little fella," Granny complimented heartily. "I've always wanted to do that to someone. Anyone, really." She stepped out onto the patio and glared down at her descendent in the pool as though he were something unpleasant a dog had brought in. "Edgar! Amy!" she shouted behind her. "Get your son out of my pool and take him home. And walk _around_ the house, not _through_ it, understand?" she added imperiously. A rather embarrassed middle-aged couple hastened to obey her.

"Um, gee, sorry about that, Granddad," Trip began sheepishly. "Mal's got this thing about protectin' me and sometimes he—"

"Eh, don't worry about it," Granddad insisted, clapping both Trip and Mal on the shoulder. "It's not Tucker Family Christmas unless someone ends up in the pool!"

 

Trip opened the back door of the transport and smiled at the scene before him: the three children and Mal were all curled up, fast asleep even after the relatively short journey home from Granny's. Annabel refused to return to consciousness, merely clutching at her uncle with complete faith in his willingness to transfer her to bed, or at least the nearest couch. Trip figured her mother, or _a_ mother, would find her before long. Emmaline and Connery at least could be set on their feet and pointed towards the front door. Which just left Mal.

_Wake up, buddy! We're home!_

Incoherent and slightly peeved mumbling.

_Come on, get up! You can go right to bed if you want, but you have to get up first._

Mal twisted in his seat in the transport so that his face was pressed against the fabric, away from Trip. The position also managed to stick his rear end into the air. This was nearly as tempting to Trip as bare feet and within seconds an indignant howl echoed through the swampy countryside. A moment later the smirking blond entered the house followed by Mal, who glared at him and rubbed his abused backside.

The family members who hadn't just succumbed to the bludgeon of Christmas cheer and gone to bed gravitated towards the living room, where they draped themselves over the furniture and complained of the exhausting nature of sitting around all day making small talk. Even the little dogs seemed decidedly less yippy after their outing. The larger dogs, who hadn't accompanied the family to Granny's, were let back in the house and took up their positions by the fireplace calmly. Mal headed straight for Gigolo Joe and induced the basset hound's one and only remaining trick. "Smart dog! What a smart dog!" he complimented, before returning to the rest of the family members.

"So how was your first Christmas on Earth, Mal?" Eddie inquired curiously, watching the other man squirm restlessly around Trip's feet.

"Oh, it was _so_ stressful," Mal sighed dramatically. "I didn't know _what_ was going on most of the time! And all the noise! And all the people!"

"It was pretty cool when you threw that guy into the pool," Steve reminisced.

"Trip, you should have _warned_ me," Lizzie griped. "I would've come to watch!"

"Honestly, what a way to behave," muttered Ma, shaking her head.

"Oh dear, are you _angry_ with me, Ma?" asked Mal earnestly, crawling over to her. "I had to protect Trip, you see, because that man was being belligerent and might have started a physical altercation. But do you think I was rude? Like Blitzen?"

Ma patted his head soothingly. "Well, I expect you did what you thought was best at the time," she allowed.

"Hey, it's not Tucker Family Christmas until someone ends up in the pool," joked Pop.

"That's just what Granddad said!" Mal remarked in amazement.

"It's like they're related," Trip tossed out wryly, while Pop looked slightly embarrassed at copying lines from his father.

"Ma, did you see the lovely fruit basket Granny gave to Trip and me? And the beautiful sweaters?" Mal inquired eagerly. "They are so soft and warm! We're going to wear them every day. And we'll _match_!"

"Yeah, they kind of looked like what would happen if a blind guy decided to paint his piano," Lizzie cracked.

"Elizabeth!" her mother chided. "That's a rude thing to say." Pause. "I'm sure even a blind person would have better taste than that."

For some reason Trip found this comment unbelievably funny. Mal giggled a little, too, because everyone else was, but somehow Trip could just tell he didn't really get it. Finally the engineer took pity on him. "Come up here, buddy," he suggested, patting the couch beside him. Mal hopped up instantly, fully prepared to curl up on Trip for as long as he was allowed to. The other man thought back to just a few days earlier, when he'd been mildly embarrassed at Mal putting his head in Trip's lap on the porch swing. A silly little bit of inhibition, really, especially considering how free Mal made with Trip's person on _Enterprise_ , among Trip's professional colleagues (or rather, how free Trip _allowed_ him to be). Trip decided to chalk it up to his own mild nervousness at coming home for the first time in years, and—"Would you sit still?" he said with some exasperation to the fidgeting man.

"I'm sorry, Trip," Mal sighed, repositioning himself again. "I didn't mean to interrupt your reverie, it was going so beautifully. You were just at the part where you were nervous about coming home—"

"Maybe it's time for you to go to bed," Trip cut in, although it was still rather early. He presumed that was the fate that had befallen the absent McCaffrey children, anyway.

"I don't _want_ to go to bed," Mal whined in response, though it wasn't the usual sort of tired whine Trip had become accustomed to recently.

"Well, what do you want to do instead?" he questioned curiously, trying to pet Mal into stillness.

"Oh, I don't know—I want to—hmmm," Mal replied brokenly, unable to find a comfortable position _or_ a good idea. "What I'd _really_ like to do, actually, is play with my ball."

Trip gave him a regretful look. "Sorry, buddy, we didn't bring it."

"Yes, I know," Mal sighed. "I just—hmmm—I just don't want to _sit_ —"

"Well, you've had a very challenging day," Trip sympathized. "Maybe you'd like to relax in the hot tub for a bit?"

"Mmm," complained Mal, squirming again. "Can't we—can't we climb up on the roof again? That was fun."

"Somehow I don't think the people trying to sleep in the attic would appreciate that," Trip smirked. He decided to open the matter up for general discussion. "Anyone got any good ideas? For Mal gettin' his exercise in, that is."

"How about doing laps in the pool?" Eddie suggested.

Trip shook his head quickly. "Mal doesn't like the water." Guess Eddie hadn't gotten the memo.

"Hmm, really? That's interesting," the younger man remarked.

"You wanna do some more dancing, Lizard?" Trip asked hopefully.

The blond woman collapsed dramatically into Steve's lap. "Sorry. I'm beat!"

"Old Blue's been cooped up all day, too," Pop pointed out impishly. "You could play with _him_."

Mal whimpered and rolled until his face was buried against Trip's chest. Feeling slightly swamped the other man tried to sit up more. "How about we go outside and play catch with an ordinary ball?" he finally offered, though he felt he, too, could fall into the 'beat' category.

Mal looked up with interest. "Do you _have_ an ordinary ball?"

"Well, I'm sure we do," Trip insisted, pushing Mal off enough to sit up fully. "Ma, is there still that box of sports equipment in the garage?"

"Here's a ball," Lizzie said helpfully, before her mother could answer. The object Trip instinctively caught when she tossed it turned out to be, as Trip had feared, a half-gnawed baseball belonging to the old coon hound.

He tried not to let Mal see it. "I think we'll take our chances in the garage, thanks," he decided. A few minutes of playing catch—or at least fetch—should have them both ready for bed pretty quickly.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part is unfinished and contains some incomplete and random scenes.

_Saturday_

Trip's eyelids fluttered as he swam towards consciousness, sluggish and unwilling, and he groaned when the soreness in his muscles finally registered in his brain. He tried to recapture sleep in a new position, but the endeavor was useless. He felt he might never be comfortable again in his life. He forced himself to sit up on the edge of the bed, gazing longingly towards the bathroom and the hot shower that waited within. If only he could find the strength to stand and—nope, he tipped back over on the bed and closed his eyes again.

It was his own fault, really. It was always his own fault. Not that Mal was incapable of controlling himself; but when he had difficulty, it was incumbent upon _Trip_ to guide him. Or flat-out tell him no. And Trip hadn't done that last night. Instead he'd flung that d—n baseball halfway across the yard until he couldn't move his arm anymore, then he'd sat in a lawn chair, desperately trying to stay awake, while Mal went into a frenzy of tree-climbing. Two hours—two hours!—after they'd first gone out Mal had relented and calmed a bit, and then they'd both stumbled upstairs and collapsed into bed. Trip was amazed he'd remembered to take off his shoes first.

Well, he hoped Mal felt better, anyway. Trip knew he was used to being more active, having more outlets for his anxiety, aboard the ship and all this sitting around had probably driven him a little batty. Trip rolled over, with great effort, and found that yes, Mal was still in bed as well, sound asleep it seemed, and with no intention of being otherwise.

Trip tried to go back to sleep.

 

 

"Mal, will you read me a story?" Annabel requested, trotting up to the dark-haired man.

"Well, I shall certainly try," Mal agreed, somewhat dubiously as he had never attempted such a feat. "What story shall I read? I think Pop has the local newspaper for today…"

Annabel brandished a large, colorful book at him. "You can read _this_! It's my favoritest book in the whole world!"

"I see. Alright then." Annabel plopped herself down on Mal's lap, squirmed a bit to get comfortable, and indicated she was ready for him to begin. Mal turned the thin object right-side up and read the title aloud. " _Fairyland Tales: The Magic Egg_ , by Edwige Deveraux. This isn't going to be scary, is it? I don't like scary stories."

"No, it's not scary," Annabel promised.

Mal opened the front cover of the book, revealing the two-page electrofilm spread. " _Published by Winged Books, Inc., International Library number_ —"

"You can skip those pages," Annabel informed him.

"Oh. Right then." Mal touched his thumb to the lower right corner of the screen and the title page appeared. " _Fairyland Tales: The Magic_ —"

"Mal, you read that already," Annabel pointed out. She twitched her legs impatiently. "Skip to where the story starts! Please," she added quickly.

Mal paged ahead again, to a colorful tableau of a glittery-winged fairy approaching a brilliantly-colored forest. "Here?" he inquired, eager to get it right this time. Annabel nodded her approval. "Alright. _One bright sunny day, Fairy Crystallina decided to go for a walk in the Fairyland Forest._ You know, I don't think her attire is really appropriate for a walk in the forest. I fear she'll attract ticks…"

Ten minutes later. "… _and they all laughed about it together_. Well, that was a very enjoyable story, wasn't it?" Mal decided, pleased. "It got a bit dodgy in the middle, when the baby dragon became attached to Nipper the cat, but then it turned out alright in the end."

Annabel nodded eagerly. "It's the bestest story in the whole world," she avowed. "Let's read it again."

"Alright," said Mal gamely. "Shall I start from the very beginning, or the title page here?"

"Here is fine."

Mal cleared his throat. " _Fairyland Tales: The Magic Egg_ , by Edwige Deveraux. I do hope I'm pronouncing that correctly, I've never seen that name before. _One bright sunny day, Fairy Crystallina decided to go for a walk in the Fairyland Forest._ I have to say, I find Fairy Crystallina to be an extremely competent leader. She's very decisive, yet you'll recall she insisted upon keeping an open mind about the mysterious egg. She rather reminds me of Captain Archer, actually."

"She's my third-favorite fairy," Annabel replied. "Fairy Esmerelda is my very favorite, because she's so beautiful. And Fairy Sapphira is my next favorite, because she's so funny."

Ten minutes later. "… _and they all laughed about it together_. Well done, fairies," Mal concluded. "Even though I know the story now, I still felt a bit tense as they were trying to figure out why the egg was making noise."

"Me too!" Annabel agreed heartily. "One time Mummy was reading it to me and she got a call and stopped _right there_! It was awful!"

Mal clucked sympathetically. "That seems very upsetting."

"Can we read it again?" Annabel requested.

"Of course," Mal replied. " _Fairyland_ _Tales: The Magic Egg_ , by Edwige Deveraux. Now to me, the use of the subtitle indicates there are other stories in the _Fairyland Tales_ series. Is this so?"

"Oh, yes," Annabel answered eagerly. "There's about a million other books. I don't have all of them, though."

"My goodness, this author is quite prolific," Mal remarked. " _One bright sunny day, Fairy Crystallina decided to go for a walk in the Fairyland Forest_. You know, I have to say that I think a map would be terribly helpful for this story. I have difficulty envisioning the relative geographic locations of the Fairyland Forest, the Fairyland Palace, the Fire Caves, and so on…"

Ten minutes later. "… _and they all laughed about it together_. That's really a very satisfying tale, isn't it?" Mal commented.

Annabel nodded. "I love it! It's lots of fun."

"Having studied it somewhat now, I feel like it touches upon many of the important literary themes," Mal opined thoughtfully. "Humanity versus nature—or rather, fairyfolk versus nature—when the fairies are struggling through the forest with the egg, for example. And certainly fairyfolk versus fairyfolk, when the fairies are arguing over the origin of the egg. There was even a strong undercurrent of fairyfolk versus themselves—witness Fairy Rubina's struggle with self-doubt as she tried to convince the others of the egg's purpose."

"Fairy Rubina is only my sixth-favorite fairy," Annabel reported. "She's kind of a _baby_. So," she continued leadingly, "can we read it again?"

"Certainly," Mal answered, skipping back to the beginning. " _Fairyland Tales: The_ —"

"STOP!" Trip marched around the corner, staring at them with his hands on his hips.

"Uncle Trip! Do you want to read the story with us?" Annabel asked with her most charming smile.

Trip almost caved. He really did. But then he saw Mal's equally charming but more familiar expression and knew he had to stand firm. "Actually I've been sitting in the other room, listening to you read the story," he informed them. " _Three times!_ Don't you think that's enough for one day?"

"But it's my favorite!" Annabel protested.

"It _is_ her favorite, Trip," Mal seconded.

Trip narrowed his eyes at the little girl. "How many times in a row does your mom read books to you?"

"Usually only once," Annabel sighed mournfully. "She says she's _too busy_."

"That's very sad," Mal told her. "Don't you think that's sad, Trip?"

"What's _sad_ ," Trip answered, with all his patience mustered, "is how crazy I'm gonna go if I have to hear the adventures of Fairy Crystallina and the dragon egg again!"

"Well you could always move to a different part of the house," Mal sniffed primly. "And anyway, you obviously weren't listening very _well_ , or you'd have realized that Fairy Crystallina is really only a _minor_ character in this story!"

Trip made a noise of frustration and got down on his knees on the floor, the better to look the readers in the eye. "Annabel, sweetie, isn't there _another_ book you'd like to read with me? Or maybe we could go outside and play?"

 

This was going to be difficult. Maybe not as difficult as going to church. But still unnecessarily difficult.

Mal blinked at him. "I don't understand."

Trip gave it another try. "Okay, so, Pop is gonna stand _there_ , and he's gonna throw the ball at you—"

Mal looked alarmed. " _At_ me?!"

"Well, _to_ you," Trip corrected quickly. "And you—"

"And I _catch_ it?" Mal guessed eagerly. "I've done that before!"

Trip shook his head. "No, you only _catch_ the ball if you're the _catcher_ , see?"

"Oh, right, of course," Mal nodded. He paused and looked to Trip uncertainly. " _Am_ I the catcher?"

Trip closed his eyes briefly, took a breath, and turned his attention to the problem again. "Right now, you're _not_ the catcher. You're the _batter_."

"Oh. Like with pancakes?"

"No," Trip countered swiftly. "You're the _batter_ because you're going to use the _bat_." He patted the wooden bat Mal dangled limply.

"Ohhhhh," Mal replied, gazing at the bat as though he finally understood the whole thing.

Trip highly doubted that. Against his better judgment he inquired curiously, "What did you think the bat was for?"

"Oh, I don't know," Mal hedged. "I thought perhaps it was just for decoration." Trip's eyebrows went up. Mal leaned on the bat like a cane. "It's a bit jaunty, don't you think?"

Trip didn't. He decided to continue as though this exchange had never taken place. "So when Pop throws the ball, you hit it with the bat, right?"

"Hit the ball with the bat, alright," Mal confirmed studiously. He thought. "Is there anything after that?"

"After you hit the ball," Trip went on, "you run the bases." He pointed out to the field set up in the backyard of his parents' house. "Lizzie is standing by first base. That's where you run first," Trip added, fearing that might not be obvious. "Katie's at second base. Eddie's at third base. And this"—he tapped the plastic flying disc at their feet, cracked and useful only as a makeshift marker now—"is home plate. You're trying to make it back here before you get _out_."

"And how do I get _out_?" Mal inquired reasonably.

Trip opened his mouth to start listing the ways, then changed his mind. "You just keep running the bases until someone tells you to stop, okay?"

"Okay," Mal agreed gamely.

Trip patted his shoulder and grinned encouragingly. "You'll pick it up in no time," he assured the other man. "Now you go sit next to Ma and watch how I do it, okay?"

Mal nodded, handed over the bat, and scampered away to sit on the grass beside Ma's lawn chair. The rest of the crowd for today's sporting event consisted of Elaine, rocking the baby, and Ian, eyes drifting towards the data pad he was absolutely not allowed to read during the game. Trip gave the bat a few experimental swings off to the side, limbering up his muscles, then he stepped up to home plate in front of Steve, who was acting as catcher.

"Alright, pal, let's see what ya got," he challenged the pitcher.

"Children!" Katie admonished, glancing behind her into the outfield. "Time to pay attention!" The three youngsters scrambled into position.

Pop eyed his eldest son speculatively, then wound up to throw the baseball. From first base Lizzie let out a rude rhyme designed to distract Trip, which the children immediately began parroting to their mother's displeasure. The ball flew through the air and Trip swung at it, the bat connecting with a solid _thunk_ that reverberated down through his hands and arms. Seeing the ball soar towards the outfield Trip dropped the bat and started running.

His competitive nature urged him to attempt a home run, but when he saw his nephew and two nieces bounding ineffectually after the ball he reminded himself it was supposed to be an informal, all-ages game and slowed down, choosing to stop at second base by his older sister. "Come on, throw the ball back to Granddad!" Katie was instructing. "That's it, just throw it!"

"Did you see how far I threw it, Mum?"

"I almost caught it!"

"She _dropped_ it! Can you _believe_ that?"

"I only dropped it _after_ I caught it!"

"Just throw the ball back to Granddad!"

Finally the ball made its way back to the pitcher, who faced home plate expectantly, looking for his next opponent. Who was still sitting on the grass beside Ma.

_Mal, you're up!_ Trip prompted.

"No, I'm not," Mal argued. "I'm sitting right here where you told me to!"

Trip rolled his eyes. _No, I mean it's your turn at bat!_

"Oh." Mal jumped up and wandered over to home plate uncertainly.

"Pick up the bat and swing it a few times, dear, for practice," Ma advised. Mal did so, his erratic form causing Steve to exercise rare prudence and step back a meter or so.

_You ready?_ Trip asked, a bit impatiently. He was already starting to lead off second, anticipating that the athletically-inclined Mal would hit a whopper at the first opportunity. _Step up to the plate._

Trying to hold the bat as Trip had, Mal took up his position. Pop began the wind-up as Lizzie shouted a new naughty rhyme. Mal let the bat sag. "What?" he asked in bemusement, as the baseball sailed straight over home plate into Steve's glove.

"Strike one!" the catcher announced.

Mal looked at him, mystified. "But I didn't strike the ball at all! I didn't even swing at it!"

"Lizzie, would you shut up?" Trip requested irritably. "He's confused enough already." _Just try again, buddy._

"Right, okay." Pop reclaimed the ball and everyone readied themselves again. Trip inched a bit farther away from second base. The ball sailed through the air and Mal swung at it as hard as he could, missing completely and spinning halfway around in the process. The children giggled loudly and were shushed by their mother.

"Strike two!" called Steve.

Mal looked a bit dejected at this point, so Trip decided a brief time-out was in order. He left his spot at second base and jogged back across the yard to Mal's side. "Okay, let's take a few practice hits, alright?" he suggested.

"Oh, Trip, I don't think I'm very good at this 'baseball'," Mal opined mournfully.

"Don't be so easily discouraged," Trip replied. "Now come here." Trip put his arms around the other man, showing him how to hold the bat up. "Give us a pitch, Pop!" As the ball approached, Trip twisted Mal bodily, swinging the bat and connecting with the ball to create a satisfying _crack_! The ball bounced through the infield and was handily scooped up by Eddie.

"Ow, that stings," Mal complained, dropping one hand from the bat and shaking it.

"Part of the fun," Trip assured him. "Now you think you got it?" He stepped back.

Mal was disappointed. "Couldn't we play the whole game like that? It's almost like snuggling, but with bats and balls."

Trip did not make eye contact with the nearby Steve. "That would be a _no_ , buddy," he declared. "You ready to try again?"

"I suppose," Mal conceded, without enthusiasm. "I imagine I shan't do very well, though."

"You should think more positive!" Trip advised, hurrying back to second base.

"Ready?" asked Pop.

"Alright," sighed Mal, lifting the bat.

Pop pitched. Mal swung. And, much to his surprise, the bat actually struck the ball. "I hit it, I hit it!" Mal exclaimed excitedly, remembering to drop the bat and run towards Lizzie—despite the fact that everyone was shouting at him.

_Stop! Stop running!_

Mal skidded to a stop short of first base on Trip's command. "Why?"

"Foul ball!" several people replied, retrieving the ball from beyond the first base line.

"Foul?" Mal repeated distastefully. "Well, surely that's not _my_ fault. You shouldn't have used one of the balls with dog slobber on it."

_Just go back to home plate,_ Trip told him.

"Well, fine then."

"Strike three!" Steve added for good measure. "You're out!"

"Oh." Mal didn't seem especially disappointed. "Okay then, I'll just sit by Ma and watch—"

"Let him try a few more times!" Trip shouted, figuring Mal deserved the same consideration the kids would get.

"Come on, Mal, let's try again," Pop directed.

"Must we?" sighed Mal.

_Yes_!

"Strike… four!"

"Foul ball!"

"Foul ball!"

"Strike… whatever!"

"Pop, that was a terrible pitch!"

"I know, sorry."

"Mal, don't swing at the bad pitches."

"How do I know when they're bad?"

"Strike!"

"Strike!"

"Can't I stop now?"

Trip was beginning to think that might be a good idea. Mal just didn't seem to have a natural aptitude for this kind of thing, and everyone else was getting bored. The children were playing a different game as they waited in the outfield, something that involved flinging bits of grass at each other.

"One more," Trip decided mercifully.

Mal picked up the bat. Pop shook his shoulders out, rolled the ball in his hand a bit, and finally threw it. Mal swung. The bat and ball connected loudly—but instead of spinning off to the side into foul territory again the ball arced high over the field.

For a moment everyone, including Mal, just stared at it in amazement. Then they all started to shout.

"Run! Mal, run!" Trip yelled, finally taking off from second base.

"Connery! Get the ball, get the ball!" Katie ordered her eldest child, directing his wandering attention.

"Run to Lizzie! Run to Lizzie!" several people shouted, seeing Mal dithering over home plate indecisively.

"Gimme the ball!" Lizzie demanded of her young nieces and nephew as Mal approached. The children hopped and scrambled through the grass, probably kicking the fallen ball farther out of reach a few times.

"Now run to Katie!" Trip shouted, jogging backwards after clearing third base. He had determined he was in no danger of being tagged before he could make it home.

Mal ran, just as Connery finally snatched the ball from a younger sister and threw it, with some skill, to his aunt. Lizzie promptly hurled it to Katie, but Mal had just passed her on course to Eddie, having finally picked up on the pattern of the bases.

"Run, Mal, run!" everyone shouted, except perhaps Katie and Lizzie who were too fueled by the competitive spirit. Trip figured Mal was actually fairly safe at this point, as Eddie would probably drop the ball when it was flung to him—he usually did in situations like this, because he didn't like tagging people out. Katie must've forgotten that or she would have insisted he take second base instead.

Fortunately Eddie didn't have to fake missing the ball this time, as Blue bounded onto the field in a burst of enthusiasm and tackled the blond, stealing the ball triumphantly as Mal raced past. Trip, having safely completed his run, practically fell over laughing, especially when the children started to chase Blue across the infield in pursuit of the ball.

"I'm coming, Trip!" Mal announced joyfully, speeding towards the base Steve had given up defending.

"Well come on then!" Trip encouraged. "Come on home!"

Mal stepped on the plastic substitute for home plate and kept running right to Trip's arms, where there was much celebratory hugging and whooping. "I like baseball," he finally decided. Trip suspected what he really liked was the hugging.

"Good job, Mal!" Trip told him again, for good measure. "Now we're gonna do something different, okay?"

"Oh! Shall we have lunch, then?" Mal suggested. "Or perhaps watch a lovely musical with singing and dancing?"

"Uh, no," Trip corrected, trying not to show that he knew the other man would be disappointed. "Something different but still in baseball, I mean."

"Oh." Mal nodded quickly, wanting to be a good sport about it all.

"I mean, we're gonna have a new job in the game," the blond clarified. "Uh, let's just head out onto the field, okay?"

"Okay."

Blue the dutiful coon hound finally brought his prize back to his master, dropping the baseball at Pop's feet before ambling back to the Ma's side, his energy spent for the day. Trip paused on his way to the outfield and pulled Eddie back to his feet.

"You okay?" he smirked, batting the bill of his younger brother's cap.

Eddie sighed and straightened the hat. "Yeah. That kind of thing seems to happen to me a lot, though."

"Eddie! Let's switch positions, okay?" Katie instructed, already heading towards him.

Eddie and Trip exchanged a look; apparently their older sister had decided Eddie wasn't fit for the important position of third baseman. Shaking his head Trip continued on to the outfield with Mal in tow.

" _Now_ , see, our job is to catch the ball and throw it to other people on the field," he explained to Mal as the children prepared to bat.

"Hmm, okay, I like catching things," Mal agreed.

"Right, and—"

"Except for colds and the flu, of course," he interrupted to clarify.

Trip gave him a second but he seemed to be finished. "Right, and when you—"

"And being pregnant," Mal added, for the sake of completeness. "I shouldn't want to catch _that_."

"Are you done?" Trip asked him.

"Oh, except for being pregnant with Baby Trip would be okay, lovely actually, but I was thinking before about _catching_ an alien baby—"

"Mal."

Mal blinked at the other man. "Yes, Trip?"

"Quit babblin' and listen to me," Trip instructed. Mal nodded dutifully. "Now, if you get the ball, I'll tell you where to throw it, got it?"

"Okay."

Trip took a glance at the head of the field, where Annabel—wings winking in the sunlight—was apparently the first at bat. "Let's more infield a bit," Trip judged. "You go stand over there, on the other side of Pop." Trip took up a position near third base.

"Shouldn't you be farther out?" Katie asked him pointedly.

"Well, no need for you guys to run ground balls," Trip commented neutrally. "Me and Mal can do that."

Katie raised an eyebrow at him in an inscrutable manner, but he tried to ignore the spike of irritation it caused. She was probably just trying to get to him again. Instead he focused on the pint-sized batter, who fixed her grandfather with a very serious look as he prepared his pitch.

Pop threw the ball, but Annabel let it fly past without swinging. "Uh, strike one?" suggested Steve.

"Good girl, Annabel, never swing at the first one!" Katie encouraged.

Trip looked askance at her. "What do you—"

Pop pitched again and Annabel swung confidently, connecting with an impressive _crack_! The ball flew high into the air and Trip didn't have time to think, didn't have time to do anything but run, run towards the outfield where the ball was headed. He probably shouldn't catch it; that would be an automatic out, a sorry end to a great hit by a six-year-old. But still, to see a ball flying through the air like that and let it go… Nah, he just couldn't.

"I got it, I got it!" Trip shouted to no one in particular, positioning himself beneath the plummeting ball. He held up his mitt, time slowing as the ball seemed to inch through the air until suddenly, in a rush of motion—Trip was knocked to the ground and the ball bounced away through the grass.

"Mal!" Trip sputtered furiously, shoving the other man off him. "What the h—l?!" He was scrambling for the ball even as he shouted, but Annabel had landed safely on second base and Eddie had advised her to go no farther. Trip hurled the ball back to his father, then turned his glare on Mal.

"Oh, Trip! That ball was headed _right towards you_!" Mal exclaimed worriedly. "And it was going _so fast_! I'm sure it would have injured you if it had hit you!"

"It wasn't going to _hit_ me!" Trip told him sharply. "I was going to _catch_ it!" He brushed grass and dirt off his arms and legs peevishly, batting Mal's hands away when he tried to assist. "At least I would have until _you_ knocked me down! Honestly, you're as bad as Blue!"

Trip regretted his harsh tone a moment too late and glanced back up at Mal, fearing he'd managed to spoil the game for the dark-haired man. Instead Mal looked delighted.

"Thank you, Trip!" he exclaimed happily. "Ma was _just_ saying how loyal and devoted Blue was, though I hope I don't drool _quite_ so much…"

Trip rolled his eyes. "Go back to where you were before," he suggested, not unkindly. Following his own advice, he ended up near Katie again and gave her a questioning look, though he could barely stand the smugness of her grin.

"Annabel's in a junior league back home," his older sister informed him smartly. "She's still learning most things. But she's already a great little slugger, don't you think?"

Trip looked at her smirk for a moment, so ready to put him down, and instead of being annoyed he started laughing. Annabel _was_ a great little slugger, and Katie had pulled one over on him pretty well. He turned towards second base. "Nice hit there, Annabel!" he called to his niece, who waggled her wings in return.

"That was a nice dive you took in the outfield," Eddie teased him.

"That _definitely_ happens to me all the time," Trip told his brother dryly.

After a few swings Emmaline finally got to first base and Annabel moved to third, leaving Connery at bat. Trip watched him practice a bit and decided to send Mal to the outfield just in case. Sure enough, with a resounding crack, the ball went flying over all their heads towards the open grass.

"Catch it, Mal!" Trip shouted, though he needn't have bothered—Mal already had that determined look in his eye. He wasn't going to mess anything up _this_ time.

It was a good hit, and Connery was a fast runner. Annabel had already made it home, and her brother was practically overtaking Emmaline on the bases. If he decided to stop at one, he'd be safe even if the ball landed perfectly in Mal's hands. "Grab it, Mal!" Trip yelled, so the dark-haired man made an inhuman leap and plucked the ball from the air.

Trip thought he heard Katie object to the alien advantage in the background, but he was busy making the rest of the play. "Throw it to me!" he ordered, figuring he could intercept Emmaline as she frantically ran towards third.

Instead of throwing it, however, Mal just ran. "What're you—Throw it!" Trip demanded, as Emmaline raced by him on her way to safety. _Throw the ball! Now!_

Mal dropped to his knees before Trip, offering up the ball he'd caught with a slightly manic grin. "Lookit lookit lookit! I caught the ball, Trip! I caught it for _you_!"

Trip snatched the ball from Mal's hands and winged it half-heartedly to Steve at home plate, knowing it wouldn't get there until after Emmaline had. Then he turned back to face Mal, hands on his hips, expression severe.

Slowly the smile faded from Mal's face. "Oh," he remarked after a long moment. "I was supposed to throw it to you, wasn't I? So you could get someone _out_."

Trip sighed. "Well, you got Connery out just by catchin' the ball, but— _yeah_. You were supposed to throw me the ball. Like I said."

"I'm sorry, Trip," Mal assured him with resignation. He was still on his knees, squinting up at Trip in the sunlight. "I just got so excited about catching the ball, I forgot."

Trip patted his shoulder. "Well, let's try to focus a little more next time, okay?" He glanced towards home plate, where new batters were lining up. The children had been sent to the outfield again, so Trip and Mal could take other positions. "Why don't you go man second base and I'll take first, okay?"

"Okay, Trip," Mal agreed.

 

They were still laughing as they all reentered the house, talking about family baseball plays both past and present, and Trip almost felt like he'd never been in Starfleet at all, never been nearly a hundred lightyears away from this place. If he thought about it too hard the feeling died away, like wisp of fog in the air, so he tried to think only about the story Pop was telling—something about a baseball shooting straight up in the air from the bat—even though he'd heard it a dozen times over the years. Mal and the younger children seemed to believe it.

Trip clapped his nephew chummily on the back. "Good play there, Con," he enthused. Together the two of them had tagged _three_ of the other players out, the last major event of the game.

"Thanks, Uncle Trip," the boy grinned.

"You keep this up, buddy, you're gonna be a real terror on the field," Trip predicted.

"Eh, I like soccer better," Connery decided with a shrug and Trip just shook his head, letting the boy spin off to his next activity.

The engineer wandered into the kitchen to grab a beer. "Hey, Ma, can I have a cookie?" he queried, already reaching for a container.

"Absolutely not," his mother told him firmly, much to his surprise. Trip stared at her, hand frozen in mid-air, trying to figure out if she were joking. "Lunch is in half an hour," she continued, sounding peeved, "and I won't have you all turnin' up your noses at it because you've stuffed yourselves with treats beforehand."

Trip's eyes widened as he listened to the unexpected tirade. "Ma, when did anyone ever turn their nose up at your cookin'?" he asked in confusion. "And anyway, I just want _one_ …"

Ma rolled her eyes, though more at herself, Trip hoped. "Sorry if I snapped at you, baby," she sighed, "but I've already chase your father, brother, sister, and the children out of here, snuffling for cookies like pigs after truffles."

Trip laughed at the imagery and backed away from the cookies. "Okay, Ma, whatever you say," he assured her with a grin. "Guess it's my own fault for bein' so far back in line!"

He left the kitchen with his beer and headed vaguely for the living room, though he had no particular destination in mind. The room was empty when he reached it except for Mal, sitting on the floor near the fireplace with the dogs. From the smell, he had just encouraged Gigolo Joe to perform his lone trick again.

The dark-haired man failed to look up excitedly when Trip entered the room, reminding the other man how used to that behavior he was. In fact, Mal's whole body language—knees drawn up, back to Trip, staring moodily into the fire—seemed off. _Great_ , Trip thought, suppressing a sigh. What was the problem _this_ time?

"Hey, buddy, what's up?" Trip asked casually, settling onto the couch. Mal didn't answer—he ignored the other man completely. Trip let out the sigh he'd been restraining and leaned forward. "Buddy? What's the problem?"

Mal gave him a dark look over his shoulder. "Oh, am _I_ your buddy now?" he asked sarcastically. "I thought _Connery_ was your 'buddy'."

Trip frowned. "What the—What are you talkin' about, Mal?" Surely he couldn't be upset because Trip and Connery had made that triple play together? _That_ would be a stretch, even for Mal.

"Oh, you don't even remember it," Mal scoffed, turning back to the fireplace. "Well that certainly shows how important _I_ am to you."

Trip was starting to get ticked now. He didn't like playing these little guessing games—not with siblings, not with lovers, and certainly not with Mal. "Mal, what are you mad about?" Trip demanded.

"I already told you!" Mal insisted confusingly.

"Mal, just spit it out," Trip ordered. "I'm not the one who's a mind reader." Mal refused to acknowledge him, and Trip felt his temper flare. _Okay, calm down,_ he told himself, taking a deep breath. _We'll figure this out._

"Are you mad 'cause Connery and I were playin' well together at the end there?" Trip questioned curiously.

"No."

He seemed sincere enough, which mystified Trip even more. He cast his mind back to anything else in the game Mal might have perceived as an insult. "Um… are you mad 'cause I yelled at you when you knocked me down and made me miss that catch?" Even though that had been quite some time ago and Mal hadn't seemed upset at the time.

"No."

Trip was out of ideas. "Well, d----t, what're you mad about, then?!" he insisted, forgetting to calm down.

Mal faced him, expression pained. "I told you! You called Connery 'buddy'!" he repeated plaintively. " _I'm_ supposed to be 'buddy'!" Trip couldn't help it. A grin twitched at his lips, even as Mal whimpered his despair. "It's not funny!" he responded petulantly.

"No, no, no, it's not funny," Trip agreed, though his expression said otherwise. "But Mal, be reasonable—you're jealous of a _word_ I said to a twelve-year-old?"

Mal turned his back on Trip again, pouting. "It's _my_ word," he grumbled possessively. " _I'm_ your buddy. Not anyone else."

"I'm sorry, Mal," Trip told him, trying to sound sincere. Well, he _was_ sincere, but also amused—and he didn't think Mal would appreciate _that_ part. "It was just a slip of the tongue, okay? Okay?"

It was not yet okay. Trip rolled his eyes at the man's back, wondering what he'd ever done to deserve such a moody little companion. "Hey, Connery!" Trip shouted suddenly, voice pitched to carry throughout the house. Mal jumped.

"Yeah, Uncle Trip?" a voice drifted back.

"You can't be my buddy, only Mal's my buddy," Trip announced, not really caring who else heard. "You can be my _pal_ , though, okay?"

"Okay," the boy agreed, his tone practically adding a bemused 'whatever' to the response.

Trip turned back to look at Mal. "There. Are you happy now? Has it been clarified sufficiently who is a buddy and who isn't?"

Mal scooted around so he was facing Trip, which surely constituted an improvement in his mood. "Well… I don't know," he replied thoughtfully. "I shall have to consider the matter."

Trip took this as his cue. "Come on, Mal," he coaxed. "Won't you be my buddy? I'll give you a cookie."

Mal looked at him sharply. "Don't try to bribe me!" he admonished, even as he crept a bit closer. "Have you _got_ a cookie?"

Trip knew he couldn't falter _now_. With his best huckster's grin he assured the other man, "I can _get_ one."

Mal narrowed his eyes at Trip but crawled towards him a bit more. "It's quite rude to offer me a cookie when you haven't got one," he chided. "Besides, Ma put all the cookies _away_."

"Yeah, but I know where she put 'em," Trip revealed.

"Really?" Mal asked, interest piqued. He was practically sitting on Trip's feet now and accepted a hand threading through his hair.

"Yup," Trip nodded, furthering the conspiracy. "She's counting on my adult maturity level to keep me from gettin' into them, but I think that will be her downfall."

Mal squeezed between Trip's knees, getting fully comfortable again. "Still, one oughtn't to take cookies without Ma's permission," he decided. "And," he added pointedly, "one oughtn't to promise things that one can't deliver."

"Who says I can't deliver?" challenged Trip. He leaned his head back against the couch, the better to project his voice to the kitchen without shouting in Mal's ear. "Hey, Ma!" The dark-haired man winced anyway. "Mal's mad at me. Can I have a cookie to give him so he'll like me again?"

"She'll say no! You can't get a cookie _that_ way!" Mal predicted in a harsh whisper. Trip shushed him.

"Well, I suppose," Ma allowed from the other room.

A chorus of indignant protests arose from somewhere else in the house, no doubt from the others who had been denied treats previously. Trip could hear his mother tell them, in a child-friendly way, what exactly they could do with their complaints and he smirked. A moment later Lizzie entered the living room, bearing a napkin containing precisely one cookie.

"Ma told me I had to bring you this," she reported to Trip grudgingly. Her tone turned indignant when she observed the two men, however. "Hey! Mal looks plenty happy to _me_!"

"That is entirely dependent upon me giving him _this_ ," Trip informed her, snatching the cookie away. He presented the prize to the other man triumphantly. "There you go, one cookie as promised. Will you be my friend again?"

Mal accepted the cookie and threw his arms around Trip. "Oh, Trip! I was _always_ your friend!" he exclaimed. "I just wanted to make sure I was still your _buddy_."

"Well you are," Trip agreed, patting Mal's head as he inhaled the cookie.

"What a scam," Lizzie muttered, rolling her eyes as she left.

 

"Well… Think it's about time for your afternoon nap, buddy." Trip saw Mal scrunch up his face like he was about to whine and willed him not to.

"Annabel, you'd better take a nap, too," Katie decided.

"But Mummy—"

"But Trii-iip—"

"No buts!" Katie and Trip said in unison, then looked at each other awkwardly.

"Um, come on, Mal," Trip went on, taking his hand.

"Let's go, Annabel," Katie prompted. Connery and Emmaline, exempt from the nap dictum, ran off to continue playing with much glee.

"But Mummy, it's dark and scary up in the attic all alone," Annabel protested as they climbed the stairs to the front porch.

"You'll be fine, it's the middle of the afternoon," her mother assured her.

"Won't you take a nap _with_ me, Mummy?" the little girl suggested.

"No, Annabel," Katie answered, in the tone of one who has said this many times before. "I don't need to take a nap with you. You'll be fine."

"Well, if Mal has to take a nap, too… Can't Mal take a nap with me?" Annabel reasoned.

"Oh, what a lovely idea," Mal replied happily.

Trip winced a little, fearful of what Katie would say to _that_ suggestion. "Hey, we could put them both in the family room," he countered quickly. "It's only for an hour or so, most people'll probably be outside anyway."

"Please, Mummy, please?" Annabel pleaded, her wings bobbing as she hopped for emphasis. "I don't want to go to the attic!"

"Alright, fine," Katie conceded. The group made a detour as they entered the house and Katie immediately took charge of the logistics. "Now, Annabel, you can sleep on the couch here. Mal, would you like to use Pop's recliner?"

"Oh, I would _love_ to use Pop's recliner!" Mal exclaimed. Instead of reclining in it, however (which Trip had imagined would end badly), he curled up into an inhuman little ball on the seat. "It's _so_ cozy!"

Katie tried not to stare. "Hey, take your shoes off there," Trip instructed belatedly, seeing Annabel automatically slip out of hers. "Um, do you need some help, or—"

"Nope!" The foot-side of the Mal-ball wiggled a bit and his shoes popped up, tumbling over the arm of the chair to the floor. Trip decided not to question it.

"Come on, Annabel, let's take your wings off," Katie was trying to persuade the girl.

"Wait, is this like _church_?" Mal asked in confusion, sticking his head back up.

"Oh, Mummy, I don't _want_ to take them off," Annabel protested tiredly. "I'll just lay this way." She turned on her side, facing the couch, closing her wings together behind her. "See, they won't get in the way."

Katie sighed. "Okay, fine." She pulled a blanket off the back of the couch and started to tuck it around Annabel.

Mal watched closely. "Trip, _I_ want a blanket!"

Patiently Trip found a covering and bundled it around Mal. "Comfy?"

"Mmmm, my foot is uncovered." The offended extremity twitched and Trip flipped a corner of the blanket down over it.

"Better?" he grinned.

"Mummy, I want my dolly, please?" Annabel requested.

"Alright, fine, I'll go get it," Katie agreed.

Immediately Mal opened his mouth. "Trip, I want my Chitter-Blue-Ham—"

"Okay, okay," Trip assured him. "I'll get it for you."

Trip trotted up the stairs a few seconds behind Katie and turned off down the hall to his bedroom. Mal's blue stuffed toy was still sitting on the bookcase next to Trip's horse. He grabbed the little rodent and hurried back out, meeting Katie on the way. She was carrying a sizable rag doll with blond hair and pink sparkly wings.

"What's that?" she asked, nodding towards the toy Trip held.

"Oh, it's this little stuffed thing I got for Mal," Trip explained. "It's kind of a funny story—" He thought over the incident quickly. "Um, well, actually it's not really that funny. Just, Mal saw this little critter in a cage at the market on this one planet, and he really liked it but of course we couldn't get it. So I got him this instead."

"Hmm," Katie replied vaguely, no doubt trying to figure out what details he had omitted. "That's nice." Trip thought she might have meant it.

"Here you go, buddy." Trip tucked the toy under Mal's arm and replaced the blanket. "Anything else?"

"No, I'm okay," Mal decided.

"Now go to sleep," Katie told Annabel, giving her the doll.

"Okay, Mummy." Katie leaned over and gave the little girl a kiss on the cheek.

Mal glanced up at Trip hopefully. _No way, no kissin'_ , Trip thought to him firmly, ruffling his hair affectionately. There had to be limits, after all. Mal sighed and ducked his head back down. Within moments both of them were fast asleep.

 

Trip squinted across the table. Katie squinted back. Neither wanted to give anything away about the cards they held. Or rather, the cards they _thought_ they held, as they could see only the backs of their own cards. Despite the fact that they could clearly see the cards held by all the other players, the game was still challenging; it was often difficult to deduce what one's own cards were, and thus how they should be played, against the cards left in the deck. It required great concentration to play well, and both Trip and Katie were _determined_ to play well.

Lizzie, not so much. "—so I might be going to Portugal in a couple months to see the site myself, because the surveyor was _so completely incompetent_ , and—Hmmm…" She gazed momentarily at the card she'd just drawn, trying to figure out if it could be useful with the other cards she might be holding, if she could remember what those were. "Eight of spades… I know, I'm going to put it down with the nine and ten of spades that I already have!" she declared brightly.

"No, you aren't," murmured Eddie, who sat across the table from her.

Everyone else could see Lizzie's cards and knew whether she, in fact, had a nine and ten of spades or not; her challenge was to figure out if Eddie was bluffing when he said she _didn't_ have them. Eddie was about average at bluffing, in Trip's opinion; but Lizzie was terrible at reading him, and didn't pay enough attention to the game to have confidence in her cards anyway.

"Oh, alright," Lizzie conceded easily, which was just as well, as she didn't have the cards she thought she did. She tucked the new card into her ever-expanding hand with the back facing her and probably promptly forgot what it was. Finally, she made the realization her older sister had been waiting for. "Oh, I'm out of chips!"

Katie and Trip's eyes narrowed at the young woman, anticipating that she must now turn in her cards and leave the game to the older three, as she couldn't put the obligatory two chips into the pot instead of laying down a card. But Lizzie, for all her faults, had creative strategies of her own. "Eddie, give me some of _your_ chips."

Obligingly Eddie pushed a small stack of his chips across the table to her. "Eddie!" Katie chided him, as he studiously avoided her gaze.

"It's not against the rules," Trip reminded her cheerfully. Those kinds of strategies were Lizzie's specialty, after all.

Katie attempted to appeal to her sister's better nature anyway. "Lizzie, if you don't have anything left to bet with, you ought to fold."

"Oh, what fun would _that_ be?" Lizzie tossed off, carelessly flinging a couple of chips into the center pot to keep herself in the game. "Besides, I've got plenty of chips _now_."

Katie gave them all an exasperated glare. Trip smirked and said nothing, figuring that whatever discomfited Katie was a benefit to _him_. Indeed, he had only to pause a moment too long before she said crisply, "It's _your_ turn."

"Oh, right," Trip agreed, as if he hadn't realized it. He drew a card from the deck and flipped it over on the table for all to see. Jack of diamonds. "Hmm," he mused thoughtfully, glancing around the table at the others and their cards. Katie's face betrayed no emotion, while Lizzie giggled to herself and Eddie looked uncomfortable. Unfortunately Trip couldn't attach any significance to the last two expressions, as that was how his siblings had looked throughout the entire game: Lizzie never took it seriously enough and Eddie always tried to fold early and escape.

"Are you having trouble deciding?" Katie asked icily. "You can always pass, you know."

"I don't think I'm going to pass," Trip replied slowly, drawing his move out. "I _think_ I'm gonna put two Jacks down on that."

"And where exactly would these two Jacks come from?" Katie asked, raising her eyebrow.

For a second Trip quailed, wondering if he had miscalculated. There was a steep penalty in chips for insisting you held cards you didn't. But no, it couldn't be, he'd been paying very close attention. He was certain. He couldn't let Katie bluff him. "That would be the Jack of hearts and the Jack of clubs in my hand," he clarified confidently.

"Are you sure about that?" Katie pressed.

Now Trip was becoming peeved. He was certain he held those two Jacks. But obviously he didn't know which two specific cards they were in the fan of eight, and he wasn't allowed to look for himself. The person across the table from him—i.e., Katie—was supposed to point out the cards when it was obvious he'd made his final decision. Which he felt he had. "Yes! Pick out the cards."

Katie shook her head. "You haven't got enough chips left to cover this mistake. I'll let you go this time—wouldn't want Eddie to have to loan _you_ some, too."

Trip made a noise of frustration and Eddie, realizing this battle could go on all day, reached over to his brother's hand and drew out the two cards in question, dropping them on the table near their fellow Jack. Cackling with triumph, Trip made a show of arranging the stack properly.

"Eddie!" Katie complained again. He always spoiled the really _interesting_ turns of strategy the game could take. Although again, technically what he did was not against the rules.

Prudently Eddie avoided answering his older sister and instead drew his own card. Three of spades. Not very exciting. Except of course for—"Um, ace of spades, two of hearts, four of hearts, five of spades," he remarked, indicating his desire to set up one of the rarest plays. Trip and Katie kept their faces studiously blank. This was not their bluff to lose.

"Nope, sorry," Lizzie sing-songed. "You don't have those."

"I do," Eddie replied, with quiet confidence, and the other players sagged in defeat as Lizzie was forced to place her brother's cards in the high-scoring trick.

"You had _nothing_!" Trip exclaimed, with good-natured frustration, as he set his own cards down. There was really no point in continuing the game now—neither he nor Katie were interested in playing for _second_ place.

Eddie turned his remaining card around to examine it—an unimpressive nine of diamonds. "Hmm," he commented. "That's not what I thought it would be."

"Please don't tell me you _guessed_!" begged Trip. "Well, good job, anyway."

Eddie was less enthused. He knew what being the winner of this game traditionally meant in their house. "Good job. I'd better go check on the kids," Katie announced, jumping up.

"I'd better go check on Steve," Lizzie asserted, leaving the table as well.

"I'd better go check on Mal," Trip added, taking off. Eddie just shook his head and grabbed the game box from the nearby couch, beginning the tedious task of sorting the chips correctly and putting them away.

The kids were splashing around in the pool under Pop's supervision—if you could call that supervision—so Trip wasn't sure what Mal had gotten up to while Trip was playing cards. Mal was not terribly good at such games, as Trip had discovered early on. Even the simplest games inspired countless questions about obscure scenarios or, worst of all, the fundamentally unanswerable 'why.' Mal also had no concept of the 'poker face' and abhorred trying to hide things from Trip or compete with him in any way—which was actually balanced out by his ability to tell with uncanny accuracy what Trip's own game strategy was. So in the end _all_ strategy was impossible, and Trip had pretty much given up on the hobby with him.

Figuring that when it came to Mal, the kitchen was a good place to start, Trip headed that way. Mal would find Trip on his own soon if Trip couldn't locate _him_ , anyway. "Mal? Are you in here?"

"Oh, yes, Trip, I'm right here!" came an eager voice and Trip turned the corner into the kitchen. And stopped short.

Mal was sitting on the kitchen floor, surrounded by—parts. Metal and polymer parts, spread out all around him, arranged in clusters and lines according to some system that only he understood. He looked up at Trip excitedly. "Look! I disassembled the coffee maker! It's _so_ interesting! Have you… ever…" He trailed off uncertainly as he sensed Trip's response, not that it was hard to read.

"You _what_?!" he sputtered, disbelief and anger rising quickly. "Why did—Mal, what the h—l were you thinking?!"

Mal glanced around at the pieces all over the floor. Suddenly they seemed less fascinating, less gleaming, than before. "Well, I-I wanted to see how it worked, I guess…" Seeing Trip's stormy expression he continued to ramble. "…we haven't one like this on _Enterprise_ and I just thought that…"

"What?" Trip demanded sharply. " _What_ did you think? You _didn't_ think!" Mal tried to make himself very small on the kitchen floor. "That's not a toy! It doesn't belong to you! Why would you think it was okay to just take it apart? Who's gonna put it back together? You?! I don't think so!"

"What is all this noise?" said a voice behind Trip, and Ma stuck her head in. "What in the—"

Trip spun the situation quickly. "Look, Ma, I'm real sorry, I don't know _what_ his problem is, but I'll make sure it gets put back together, I promise—or I'll get you a new one—" Ma's eyes widened as she realized what had occurred. Instead of replying, however, she clapped a hand over her mouth and fled the room.

Trip wheeled back around to face a cowering Mal, his expression all the more intimidating for how controlled he kept it. "You get upstairs to our room," he ordered fiercely. "And you _stay_ there!" Mal vanished at top speed.

Trip took a couple of deep breaths, trying to calm down—and praying no one else came into the kitchen for a few minutes. All he could think was—why would Mal _do_ something like this? If the coffee maker was broken, and Mal had offered to fix it—well, Trip could see this utter mess being the result (which would serve whoever had been foolish enough to accept his offer right). But as far as he knew the—rather vital, in _this_ household—appliance had been in perfect working order. Trip had turned his back for less than an hour and Mal had managed to deliberately destroy it. Okay, maybe he'd _thought_ , in that deluded little mind of his, that he'd be able to put it back together again, but—he didn't even have much in the way of _tools_ , it looked like, he'd probably damaged half the components trying to get them apart.

Grabbing a large food storage container from under the counter, Trip began to collect the various pieces, muttering to himself all the while. He'd never known Mal to take something apart out of curiosity before—well, not a machine, anyway, which was all that mattered to Trip. Had he been inspired by an offhand remark—from Pop or Lizzie or one of the kids, maybe? Even so, he really ought to know better than to do something like this—at the _very_ least, without running it by Trip first.

Maybe that was part of the problem, Trip thought, throwing a few metal fasteners into the bowl. Maybe Mal started out doing it, at least, because he was mad at Trip for playing a game without him? Granted Mal could be sulky when he didn't get enough attention, but he'd been fine on his own many times, and it wasn't like to him to deliberately cause trouble when upset. He was far more likely to hide somewhere for hours, or to pester Trip endlessly instead. But Trip hadn't heard a disgruntled peep out of him.

The remains of the coffee maker collected, Trip tried to decide what he ought to do next. Between Pop and him, they could probably get it back together and working in a couple hours--he'd repaired a fair number of similar models during the times he'd worked at Pop's appliance store in high school and college, though none had met quite _this_ level of… dismemberment before. Trip might actually have considered it something fun to tinker with—if it hadn't been Mal who pulled it apart in the first place, and if it weren't _his mom's coffee maker_. He hadn't exactly envisaged spending the day after Christmas back at the old workbench in the garage, anyway.

Of course that would only be a viable solution if none of the components were too badly damaged—they weren't designed to be taken apart like a puzzle, after all. Maybe Ma would just rather have a new one? Trip wasn't sure how much coffee makers were running these days, but he'd gladly shell out for one… as soon as the stores reopened after the holidays… Maybe Pop would run downtown with him and open up _his_ store, see if he had something nice in stock? In any event Trip was going to take the cost of it out on Mal's hide, metaphorically speaking, even if he had to spend the rest of his vacation trying to think of a task in Engineering that the other man _wouldn't_ like.

Having stalled as long as he could, Trip decided to bite the bullet and talk to his mother. Mal taking apart the appliance was one thing, and irritating enough; but Ma had looked so upset when she'd seen it—and then leaving without a word? _That_ was what made Trip the angriest about the whole thing, that Mal had managed to distress Ma so much. He didn't want his mother to remember something _bad_ from this rare visit home, and he didn't want her to be angry with Mal. Even though he really deserved it.

She didn't seem to be in the living room or out back, so with great timidity Trip chimed the bedroom door. It slid open to reveal his mother sitting on the edge of the bed, red-faced, dabbing slightly at her eyes. Trip's heart sank.

"Ma?" he began hesitantly.

"Come in, come in," she insisted, sniffing a bit still.

Penitently Trip sat down on the side of the bed, facing her. Whatever Mal had done wrong, ultimately Trip had to take responsibility for it. "Ma, I'm real sorry about what happened," he assured her earnestly. "I don't know what got into Mal—I was just playin' cards with Lizzie and them, and I guess he got bored or something. Anyway," he continued when she didn't respond, "I think I can fix it, or if you'd rather have a new one—" He broke off, seeing her shoulders start to shake again. "Ma?" To be honest, he hadn't thought she was so attached to the coffee maker. "Are you—"

Ma suddenly burst into laughter. Seeing her oldest son's expression of surprise and confusion she tried to compose herself again, but it appeared difficult. "Oh, I'm sorry, dear," she finally chuckled, when she could get the words out.

"Uh, Ma—"

"I didn't want to laugh in front of Mal, you see," she explained, though it clarified little for Trip. "But—oh, my goodness!" She snickered again.

"Well—I—uh—" Trip sputtered. "You—think it's _funny_?" Ma's response was to let out another string of giggles. "Well— _I_ don't think it's funny!" he asserted, a bit cross now. "I thought you were really upset!"

"Over a coffee maker?" Ma waved it off dismissively. "Your father's got three stockpiled in the garage. He'll be thrilled for an opportunity to produce one." She rolled her eyes a bit at the thought. "Now, the time we discovered you'd taken all the screws out of the dining room table—as your father set the Thanksgiving turkey down on it— _then_ I was upset." Now it was Trip's turn to roll his eyes. Honestly, how many times did _that_ story need to be brought up? "Or the time you rewired the stove when I needed to make that casserole for church. Or even the time _you_ took the coffee maker apart."

Trip frowned at her. "What? I don't remember that." Okay, yes, he'd had his fair share of dismembering household gadgets as a _young_ child, but he definitely didn't recall ever touching the sacred coffee maker.

"Well _I_ do," Ma assured him. "You were just five or six, and it was one of your first 'mechanical explorations,' as your father liked to call it. That was when we decided to put all the appliances we could up out of your reach." Her expression became a big smug. "Your father found it considerably less charming when he couldn't get his morning cup of coffee that day."

Trip was still not convinced that this was really a laughing matter. "I'm sure _I_ got punished all those times," he pointed out, a bit petulantly.

"Oh, you better believe it!" Ma replied heartily. "But even so, sometimes it was hard not to laugh, walkin' in to the kitchen to find you sittin' on the floor, bits and pieces all around you, sayin', 'Ma, Ma, I think I figured it out!'" She shook her head, chuckling again. "Seein' Mal there just reminded me of you, I suppose." She narrowed her eyes a bit. "So don't you be too hard on him, understand? What'd you do with him, anyway?"

"I sent him up to his—er, my—er, our room," Trip informed her. "I'm gonna have him greasin' engine components for the next two months. He hates that job because it's _messy_." Ma gave him a look, but Trip felt he had to stand firm on this point. "Whether you've got a back-up or not, Ma, he still shouldn't have just—taken apart something that didn't belong to him," he argued. "He's not _really_ like a three-year-old, he knows better than that."

Ma sighed and patted his shoulder. "You know best about him, dear," she conceded, not at all sarcastic. "He's sure a sweetheart most of the time, though. He's got all the best parts of you."

Trip stared at her. "Best of _me_?! Me and Mal are pretty much _opposite_ in personality, Ma."

"Oh, I have to disagree with that, baby," she countered pleasantly. "You're both curious, compassionate, good-natured, stubborn, friendly, sometimes too impulsive, hard-working, generous, brave—"

"Mal's not _brave_ ," Trip said, interrupting the litany of (mostly) compliments that was turning him slightly pink. "He's the biggest scaredy-cat I know."

"Oh, nonsense," Ma replied dismissively. "Sure, maybe he's scared of everyday things that you aren't—"

"Buffets, photographs, babies—"

"Don't interrupt," Ma instructed. "What about all the times he's rushed into danger to save you? 'Bond' thing or not, that's _not_ what a coward does. And, being brave doesn't mean you _aren't_ scared, you know—you can be scared outta your mind, and _still_ do what you know you gotta do." Trip shrugged, unwilling to concede. "Just you think of all the things that frighten Mal, but that he does anyway because you want him to. Like comin' here and facin' buffets and photographs and babies and all the other new people and food and rules." Trip nodded slowly. "But have you ever heard him say he's sick of it, he wants to go back to the ship?"

Trip wondered what her response would be if he said 'yes.' But he suspected she knew exactly what the answer was. "No."

Ma seemed satisfied. "So he's definitely what _I_ would call brave. Now maybe he's a little pickier"—here Trip snorted—"but Lord knows Tuckers are at the _other_ extreme on the picky scale, so we probably shouldn't judge that. And sure, he's not as outgoing as you are, doesn't like bein' in the spotlight. But it seems to me you two have a lot more in common than you don't. Actually," she concluded, "he reminds me of _you_ when you were young, and more than a little."

Trip wasn't entirely convinced of all this. But he knew enough not to argue with his mother. At this point he was just glad she wasn't upset—and that he wouldn't have to spend the rest of the day recreating the coffee maker. "Okay, Ma," he finally sighed, not in response to anything in particular.

She seemed to understand anyway and patted his arm. "Now you just go talk to him," she advised, which was exactly what Trip planned to do. "Maybe he'll have a good explanation for it."

Trip highly doubted that. Even if there _was_ an explanation, he couldn't imagine it would be a _good_ one. But he knew that at the very least he had to go reassure Mal that he didn't hate him now. With even _more_ reluctance than he'd felt when looking for Ma, Trip made the trek upstairs to the bedroom at the end of the hall. He thought about chiming the closed door. But then he figured, it was _his_ room and he knew who was in there, so he settled for opening it and stepping in slowly.

Mal was curled up on the bed with his back to the door. "Mal?" The only response was sniffling and the twitching of his shoulders, so Trip walked over to the bed. "Buddy?" Mal continued to ignore him—obviously he wasn't so broken-hearted that he couldn't be sullen as well. Trip lay down on the bed on his side and reached out a hand to Mal's shoulder, trying to project caring and comfort. "C'mere, baby."

Trip saw him try to hold out another moment, but soon Mal gave in and rolled over, burying his tear-stained face in Trip's shirt. He was clutching not only his stuffed blue hamster but also Trip's old toy horse. "I'm s-s-sorry," he stuttered, snuffling the words out through fresh tears.

Trip wrapped his arms around the other man and petted his hair, rubbed his back. "Shhh, shhh," he soothed. "It's okay." Not that what Mal had _done_ was okay—Trip wasn't going to budge from that. But life in general was okay. _They_ were okay.

"I shouldn't have—I don't know why I—" Mal sounded very frustrated with himself. "I just saw it, and it seemed like such a good idea… I don't know why, I should have known better… Like how I wanted to pull on Lizzie's hair rope. I just feel quite stupid now," he finished bitterly.

"You're not stupid," Trip asserted firmly. "You just did something without thinking it through. But no one got hurt because of it, so it's not _so_ bad."

"Is Ma very angry at me?" Mal asked timidly, burrowing closer to Trip. "Is she going to tan my hide?"

"No, Ma's not angry. In fact," he added wryly, "she said you remind her of _me_ when I was younger."

He knew it was the best possible thing he could have said to Mal. His whole face lit up, at least the part Trip could see around the stuffed animals. "Really? She said _I_ was like _you_?"

"Oh yeah. I used to take things apart when I shouldn't have, too," Trip reminded him.

"Oh, that's nice," Mal declared, snuggling into the other man's arms.

"It wasn't nice to _do_ it," Trip corrected gently. "It's still damaging something that isn't yours." Mal nodded mutely. "So I want you to apologize to Ma. And you're gonna help me and Pop find a spare coffee maker in the garage, and clean it if it needs cleaning."

"Okay."

The agreement was too easy—Trip well knew that none of those things really constituted a punishment for Mal. He second-guessed himself for a moment, wondering if an additional penalty was _really_ necessary—and he decided that yes, it was, if it could make Mal stop and think about what he was doing next time.

"But I don't _like_ putting the grease on things," Mal protested, before Trip could say a word. "It's _messy_. The grease is smelly and it gets everywhere and it's difficult to wash off!"

"Hence the punishment aspect," Trip pointed out.

Mal pouted for a moment, then shrugged. "Oh, alright."

"So glad you agree," Trip replied dryly. He gave Mal a firm pat. "Come on, go wash your face, and let's get to work, alright? Folks might be wantin' coffee soon."

"Okay, Trip," Mal agreed with a smile.

 

"So Trip," Lizzie began leadingly. "Big brother."

Immediately Trip was suspicious. "Yes?"

"When are you leaving again?"

"Monday morning," he replied, not especially looking forward to the day. "Why do you ask, little sister?"

"Well, that's perfect!" she declared brightly. "That gives you Saturday _and_ Sunday nights!"

Trip narrowed his eyes at her. "Gives me… for _what_?"

"Well." Lizzie took a breath and launched into her proposal. "I bet you don't get a lot of rec time on the ship, right? Probably not a lot of nightclubs out there in the galaxy."

"Well, actually—" Trip began to counter.

She cut him off. "So I was thinking, of _course_ , why don't you—and Mal—come with me to Miami Beach tonight? We can hit some clubs and meet some friends of mine—"

"Hang on, hang on, hang on," Trip interrupted. "You want me to go clubbing with you on the _day after Christmas_?"

"Well, geez, it's not like it's Christmas Eve or something," Lizzie pointed out. "Come on, the transport ride is only about forty minutes, we don't even have to spend the night there! You must be getting tired of being cooped up in the house with all of us!" she continued persuasively. "I _know_ Mal is! Wouldn't it be fun to take him out dancing?"

It wasn't that Trip was really going to say yes. For one thing, Ma would kill him if he ditched his relatives (most of them) to go clubbing. Although she might not mind as much… or even notice… if he left after she and Pop had gone to bed, and came back before Pop's morning swim… Er, no, not that it mattered, because he wasn't going to do it. But, given that he absolutely wasn't going to do it, it was still interesting to imagine what Mal would make of a real Miami Beach nightclub. He'd hate it at first, of course, but if he could put aside his worries and just focus on the dancing…

Lizzie was leaning eagerly on the arm of the couch, remarkably patient as she watched the thoughts slide across her oldest brother's face. Finally she judged the moment right to prod. "Well? 'Yes, Lizzie, go call your friends'?"

"Eh… no," Trip decided, willing to show a bit of reluctance. "Thanks for the offer, but I think we'll just stay here."

Next wave of assault. "Aw, come on, Trip! We haven't been clubbing together in forever! You're _so_ much fun to go with!"

Some people might find it strange that a pair of siblings enjoyed partying together. But for Lizzie and Trip, when it worked, it worked _great_ —jerks and snobs were easily pointed out and dismissed, and more suitable new friends could hardly become suspicious of a brother or sister. On the other hand, Trip reflected, when it _didn't_ work, the evening usually ended in a temper tantrum, fistfight, and, on one memorable occasion, being bailed out of jail by his mother. Actually that had been more of a morning than an evening by that point, and Trip still remembered how the other miscreants in his holding cell had shrunk back when Ma turned her glare of death on them.

Funny, he'd never noticed before how some of his clubbing experiences with Lizzie closely resembled many of his shore leaves.

That realization made him shake his head all the faster. "No, sorry, I don't think so. I just want to relax, kick back with a book or something, you know?"

Lizzie was not satisfied with this. "I want you to meet some of my friends, is all," she tried. "You know, not everybody has a big brother who's as cool as _you_. People just don't believe me when I tell them about you."

Yeah, flattery would get you everywhere, Trip thought. "Next you're gonna tell me that your friends are cute, single, and wildly interested in an extremely long-distance relationship, right?"

She looked at him reflectively. "Do you _want_ them to be interested in a relationship, or would you settle for cute and single?" Trip rolled his eyes and refused to answer that. "Come on! It'll be so much fun, and everyone wants to meet you and Mal—"

"What do you mean, they _want_ to meet us?" Trip questioned, suddenly becoming suspicious. The slight widening of Lizzie's eyes confirmed that something was up. "How do they know so much about me _and Mal_? Are any of your friends journalists, by the way? Little sister?"

"I don't know what they all do," she protested defensively. "I don't know them _professionally_ , you know."

"Elizabeth Louise!" Trip chastised her. "I cannot believe you! Between the Starfleet Press Office and the Starfleet Security Office I had to fill out so many frickin' non-disclosure, confidentiality, non-talkin'-to-the-press forms—I even _look_ at a reporter while on leave, they'll have me on the carpet!" Okay, slight exaggeration, but honestly, sometimes his little sister really drove him crazy. "And now you want me to just go have drinks with a gaggle and tell 'em all about my classified adventures in deep space?"

"It's not like you _have_ to talk about that!" Lizzie insisted, following Trip as he disgustedly left the room. "I'm sure you could find other topics of conversation with a single, attractive dance partner!"

"Tomorrow's headline— _I Spent the Night with_ Enterprise _'s Engineer_ ," Trip predicted acidly, wandering into the kitchen.

Mal looked up from where he was nibbling a cookie at the counter. "Oh, I do that," he pointed out helpfully. Which would _not_ be so helpful if there were any journalists around.

"I'm sure it would have lots of clever puns about reaching warp speed," Lizzie offered.

"Go away now," Trip instructed, focusing his attention on the contents of the cold box. "Before I tell Ma what you said." Lizzie left immediately.

 

 

"—so I told him, yeah, sure, I can design that, but it's gonna have to be _on the moon_ because those specs won't work in Earth gravity!"

The assembled relatives laughed at Lizzie's comeback. "So what'd he say?" someone prompted.

"Well, what's he _gonna_ say, of course he says—" They all paused as an inordinate amount of whooping and giggling occurred in the hallway.

"What's going on out there?" Katie called, in her best 'mom' voice.

Annabel entered the living room, perched delightedly astride Mal's back. Even crawling on all fours Mal was far more agile and graceful than any human, much to the little girl's glee, and he sauntered up to Trip without any apparent difficulty.

"Annabel said I could be her _pony_!" Mal informed him excitedly. "Isn't that _wonderful_?"

"It sure is," Trip frowned, feeling a touch of envy. He started to scoot off the couch. "Say, do you need a _second_ pony, or—"

Mal placed a gentle hand on Trip's knee to stop him. "Hmm, I'm not sure that would be a very good idea, actually, Trip," he began, in that tone he used when he was trying to be discreet but nonetheless failed miserably. "It's just, you may not have noticed, but you _are_ getting just the tiniest bit older now, and, well, I think probably acting as Annabel's pony wouldn't be terribly good for your spinal column—"

Sniggers from some of the adults met this remark, but Trip tried to brush them off with dignity. The sad thing was, Mal was absolutely correct, and Trip _would_ really rather not wake up with an aching back the next morning. He leaned back on the couch, his beast of burden plans thwarted. "So, uh… I didn't know fairies _had_ ponies," Trip continued conversationally.

"Well, he's not _really_ a pony," Annabel corrected. "He's a unicorn!"

"Oh, that's right," Mal agreed. "I forgot. A unicorn has a big, pointed horn on its forehead. So if I did _this_ "—Mal bumped his head lightly against Trip's leg—"I would really be _goring_ you with my big, pointed horn!"

"How delightful," Trip deadpanned.

Annabel swung her feet and patted Mal's back. "Come on, Mal, let's go for a ride!"

"Don't be too rough with him, Annabel," her mother cautioned.

Mal started to move off at Annabel's bidding. "Can't you make some unicorn noises, Mal?" she requested.

"Oh dear, I'm not sure," Mal admitted. "What sort of noise does a unicorn make?"

"I guess they kind of _whinny_ , like a horse," Annabel decided.

"Well, I suppose I could—" Mal made a noise somewhat similar to a dying chicken.

"What was _that_?" one of the adults asked in surprise.

"That _wasn't_ a unicorn noise, Mal!" Annabel protested.

"I'm so sorry, I think it's the only noise I make," he explained. "That's the _pie noise_ , you see."

"The _what_?"

Mal trotted back to the group, specifically Trip. "I would make the noise, and then I would feed Trip a bite of pecan pie," he non-explained. "He would get _rather_ upset if I didn't make the pie noise for him."

Trip stared at the other man, utterly mystified. "I have no idea what you're talking about, Mal."

Mal pranced back and forth to amuse his rider. "I'm not surprised about _that_ ," Mal agreed. "You'd had quite a lot of drugs at that point."

Trip looked helplessly around the group. "I really don't—"

"That was the time you saved the ship but broke both your legs," Mal added, and suddenly Trip recalled the incident. Although still not the 'pie noise.'

"Funny, _that_ story doesn't ring a bell," Ma noted, giving her eldest son an icy glare.

"No, it doesn't," Pop agreed, also narrowing his eyes at Trip.

_Mal, shut up and go away now._ "He's just, um, exaggerating," Trip insisted. "I mean, you know how Mal exaggerates…"

"See, something had malfunctioned on the ship," Mal related blithely, "and, because Trip is _so_ brave, he went out on the hull to try to repair it."

_Mal. SHUT UP._

"Except that even though Trip is _so_ brilliant at engineering, he couldn't repair the thing _fast_ enough, you see," Mal went on, "and he had to pry it off the hull and get rid of it."

_MAL!!_

"And right after he'd done that it exploded, and the shockwave broke both his legs, and there was something about the radiation he'd absorbed that made the usual medicines not work, so Dr. Phlox had to be 'creative' with the—"

"Mal!" Trip cleared his throat and forced his tone to sound more casual. "Quit boring people with old stories. Go and play with Annabel."

"Giddy up, Mal!" Annabel insisted, not caring at all about the conversation the grown-ups were having.

"Well, alright then," Mal agreed, attempting to trot out of the room on all fours.

Awkward silence was left behind. "I really have no idea what he's talking about," Trip told the family members gazing at him. "None of that really happened. Really." He had a feeling people were not actually buying it, however.

 

Trip caught Mal alone when they went up to their bedroom to wash before lunch. "Didn't I tell you to check with me before you told another story?" Trip asked with some annoyance.

"You did," Mal agreed, lathering up his hands at the bathroom sink.

Trip frowned. "You ignored me tellin' you to stop on purpose."

"I did," Mal confirmed.

Trip tried to keep his voice down—no use letting everyone in the house know what they were talking about. "Well then why the h—l did you tell it?!"

"Well," Mal replied thoughtfully as he rinsed his hands, "I wanted your family to know how brilliant and brave you are. Because sometimes I think they don't really think about that sort of thing." He lathered up his hands a second time. "I mean, of course they love you very much, and perhaps in some abstract way they realize that you're brilliant and brave, but that's different from them really understanding how important your job is, and how wonderful you are at it."

Trip stared at him for a few moments, as Mal moved around the bathroom washing and drying. "I just don't want them to worry about me," he finally said. "Worry about me gettin' blown up or shot or kidnapped or anything like that."

"You've got a dangerous job, Trip," Mal pointed out matter-of-factly. "I think they ought to appreciate that fact. I think they _ought_ to worry, a little."

"I have a feeling they _do_ worry," Trip assured him, patting his arm. "But maybe they don't need to be picturin' things in graphic detail. Why don't you just let _me_ decide when we talk about me bein' brilliant and brave, and when we tone it down, huh?"

"Well, of course, if that's what you really want, Trip," Mal replied. "Come and wash your hands now."

Trip rolled his eyes. "Why anyone would worry about me when I've got you around, I don't know…"

"Well, that's my goal," Mal agreed.

 

A deep woof from outside drew Ma's attention and she peered out the window with a frown. "Oh, that old dog's gotten out again," she told them, exasperated. "He'll head straight for those raccoon droppings he found in the woods the other day."

"Ew," Mal commented succinctly.

Trip stood. "Don't worry, Ma, I'll go get him." Mal started to follow. "That's okay," Trip told him quickly. "I know you aren't too fond of the dog. You stay here and help Ma, okay?" He gave Mal a reassuring smile. "I'll be just a minute."

"Okay."

Trip jogged through the house, outside into the moist air, and down the creaking steps of the front porch. "Blue!" he shouted, seeing the dog bounding happily through the weeds on the other side of the dirt road. "Don't make me chase you through the woods, I will make sure you regret—" There was a sudden blaring noise and Trip caught only a glimpse of a transport bearing down on him at top speed before he was yanked aside, tumbling into the ditch on the roadside.

The transport squeaked to a stop, swerving slightly, and the hatch opened just as Ma came running over to them. "Oh my G-d, are you alright?!" she demanded.

Mal uncurled himself from Trip and they helped each other to their feet, shaken but relatively unhurt. "I'm fine, Ma, I'm fine," Trip insisted. "Mal, are you—"

"I'm okay, I just—"

"Well, Trip Tucker, I mighta known," said a rather disgusted voice, the familiar tone sending a chill down Trip's spine.

"M-M-Mr. Applebaum," he stammered, straightening automatically.

The portly older man shook his head. "You Tucker kids got no sense at all, always jumpin' out in front of me like you own this road!" he ranted.

"Well what are you doin' drivin' down it so fast, anyway?!" Mrs. Tucker shot back furiously.

Trip felt like he had traveled back in time. "I-I'm real sorry, sir, I didn't see you, I was just chasin' the dog—"

"Chasin' the dog," Mr. Applebaum snorted. "How many times have I heard _that_ excuse? That's what you said the time I had to swerve around you and hit that tree! My transport _still_ don't run right, after all it cost me to fix her up!"

"M-Mr. Applebaum, that was—that was twenty years ago," Trip reminded him, trying to assert himself.

" _And_ we paid for it, too, you old goat, so just shut up about the money!" Mrs. Tucker snapped at him.

"Ma!" Trip didn't know if he was more shocked by his mother's anger or her admission about paying for the damaged vehicle.

"I remember it like it was yesterday," Mr. Applebaum assured them. "Surprised you even stayed alive that long, reckless like you are," he continued. "What do you do, then?"

"I-I'm an engineer, sir," Trip squeaked.

Mr. Applebaum nodded as if that were about what he'd figured. "Probably sit in some office all day, squigglin' plans," he harrumphed, clearly thinking little of the activity. "Don't have the sense God gave a baboon. Good thing your friend here has a little more sense." He turned abruptly to Mal, who froze under his scrutiny. "Guess you've got more brains than God gave a baboon, huh?"

"Do you mean by mass, or neural capacity?" Mal asked innocently, and Trip felt slightly hysterical laughter begin to bubble up within him.

"Are you tryin' to be smart?!" Mr. Applebaum accused suspiciously.

"Well, I—"

"You get back in that old clunker of yours and get on home," Ma ordered him fiercely. "Before I tell your wife I saw you somewhere you shouldn't be."

Mr. Applebaum glared at her but rather quickly complied. Still grumbling about people who were "smart" as well as lacking "sense," he drove off. Trip breathed a sigh of relief to see the tail end of his transport.

"What a crotchety old b-----d," Trip commented freely, once he was gone. "I don't see how he hasn't run someone down already, drivin'… like… that…" He trailed off as he saw his mother's face.

"You'd be a lot harder to hit if you didn't stand in the middle of the road like a fool!" Ma told him sharply. "I suppose you don't need to look both ways before you cross the street in outer space!"

"Well, no, Ma, we've got sensors…" Trip tried lamely, but he had been dismissed.

"Mal, sweetheart, are you alright?" Ma asked gently.

"Mostly, Ma," Mal replied. He contorted trying to see the back of his arm. "I think I might have torn my shirt…"

"Well you just come inside and we'll take a look," Ma soothed, pointedly looking both ways before walking back across the road. "My goodness, I never saw anyone run so fast…"

"Hey, um—" Trip jogged after them, feeling severely neglected. "I almost got hit by a transport back there, you know…" A snort made him pause as he climbed the front porch steps and he saw Blue stretched out under the swing, regarding him with knowing eyes. Trip shook his head, muttering, and trailed after Ma and Mal.

Mal was seated at the kitchen counter when Trip finally found them, taking off his black pullover with Ma's help. Trip glared until he saw the dark pink flecks on Mal's white t-shirt. "Geez, are you okay, Mal?" he asked, helping Ma remove the t-shirt as well.

"I don't think it's anything serious, is it?" Mal asked worriedly.

"Just a few cuts and scrapes, it looks like," Ma assessed critically. "I'll go get the antiseptic and bandages."

"You okay there, buddy?" Trip asked again, giving Mal a hug. He tried not to touch any of the damaged areas. "Thanks a lot, you did a real good job there." He pulled back and grinned down at Mal reassuringly. "Guess I need you around to keep me out of trouble even at home."

"I didn't like that man very much," Mal told him.

"Hey, how about a snack?" Trip suggested, trying to cheer Mal up. "Maybe some more fancy party mix? And some juice?"

"Okay," Mal agreed. Trip hurried to the other side of the counter and began digging for a bowl. "He didn't seem very nice."

"Mr. Applebaum? Yeah, he's a real son of a b---h," Trip agreed, dispensing the fancy party mix.

Mal leaned over the counter, watching him critically. "Can I have extra crickets, please?"

Trip smirked a little. "Sure, buddy. There you go. Anyway"—Trip grabbing a glass from the cabinet—"he lives down the road and always came barrelin' through without warning. Nearly hit all of us at one point or another."

Ma bustled back in with the medical supplies. "Now you just sit still, baby, and we'll get you all patched up," she promised Mal.

"Can Trip do it, please, Ma?" he asked hopefully.

Ma gave her son a narrow look, evaluating his fitness for the task. "I suppose," she finally allowed. "If he washes his hands first." Trip did so.

"Ow," Mal said a few moments later as Trip dabbed antiseptic onto a cut.

"You be gentle there," Ma reminded Trip.

"I am, I am," Trip promised her.

"It stings," Mal complained.

"Eat your fancy party mix," Trip advised him, plastering on a bandage.

"Guess I missed some excitement, huh?" Pop remarked, strolling into the kitchen.

"Your son was loungin' in the middle of the road again, nearly got himself knocked flat by Norm Applebaum," Ma reported, shooting Trip a reproachful look. "And then Mal dashed out like a bolt of lightning and pulled him away," she added proudly, ruffling Mal's hair.

"Well, good job there, Mal," Pop praised him heartily.

"Oh, well, that's just what I do," Mal replied modestly.

"And a good thing, too," Pop went on. "That Applebaum's just a crotchety old bas—"

"Chaz!" his wife admonished while Trip smirked.

"Well, he is," Pop stated matter-of-factly. "Hope you gave him a piece of your mind."

"Oh, she did," Trip grinned, affixing another bandage to Mal's arm.

"Ma is very scary when she's angry," Mal confirmed, clearly in awe.

"Well, I was just—flustered," Mrs. Tucker protested when her husband looked at her with amusement. "Shootin' down that road, knockin' my boys over…"

"There you go," Trip announced, pulling back from Mal a bit. He presented his work to his mother, who nodded in approval. "'Course you'll probably be healed before bedtime, but…" He had just stood up to put the bandages away when Mal gasped.

"You're _hurt_ ," the dark-haired man said with horror, jumping from his seat and spinning trip around again.

"J---s, Mal, I thought you were havin' a reaction to the antiseptic or something," Trip sighed.

"You said you were fine," Ma reminded her son with irritation, clustering around him as well.

"I am," Trip insisted. "It's probably just a scratch or something."

"Sit down and take your shirt off right now," Mal ordered, and with Ma aiding him Trip had little choice but to obey.

"You know, there was a time," he remarked dryly as Mal undressed him, "when I actually got to make my own decisions, and no one ordered me around unless it was for work."

"Yes, I'm sure we're all glad _that_ time of anarchy has passed," Mal replied snidely. "Oh dear, just _look_ at this, I don't know why I didn't notice it sooner…"

Ma peered at the back of Trip's shoulder. "Oh, that's hardly anything, baby," she assured Mal. "I don't think it even needs a bandage."

"Oh no, it might become infected," Mal worried, plucking the medical supplies from the table. "This climate is quite moist and _seething_ with pathogenic microorganisms, I'm sure."

"Absolutely," Pop agreed pleasantly.

Trip felt something cold and wet press against his back, the slightly uncomfortable feeling sharpening to—"Ouch, that _does_ sting," he complained.

Mal pushed his bowl around in front of Trip. "Here, have some fancy party mix," he suggested comfortingly. "It's got extra crickets in it." He smoothed the bandage carefully into place and petted Trip's hair gently. "There you go, you'll be all better soon."

Trip reddened slightly and started to protest that his injury wasn't really that serious, but his mother cut him off. "Oh, I am so glad to know you're in good hands up there in space, baby," Ma sighed, also smoothing Trip's hair. "Lord knows you need someone to look after you."

Trip sighed, realizing he wasn't going to win this argument. Ma went to put the supplies away and Pop leaned over with a serious expression, then grinned and ruffled Trip's hair, messing it up. "Just be glad someone _wants_ to look after you," he suggested cheerfully. "Mal, we sure coulda used you when Trip was younger," he continued. "Seemed like every week Grace here was fallin' down the stairs, slammin' his hand in the door, overturnin' that d—n car…"

"Really?" Mal questioned with great concern.

"Pop," Trip warned.

"Oh yeah," Pop went on, heedless. "He had this tiny old car he'd built himself, old-fashioned kind with four wheels and everything, and he flipped that thing so much you'da thought it was happier upside-down. Worst time was right at the head of the road here…"

Trip turned around in his chair as Pop described the accident, watching Mal's face grow paler and paler. "Pop, stop it, you're upsetting him," he said sharply, and the older man finally broke off his reminiscence.

"Oh. Sorry there, Mal," he apologized, patting Mal's shoulder. "It was mostly the car that was banged up, Trip only got a sprained wrist from it all."

"You _sprained your wrist_?" Mal repeated with horror. He threw his arms around Trip."That's awful!"

It was also fifteen years ago, with many worse injuries since, but Trip didn't think this was the right moment to point that out. "Why don't we go put on some clean clothes," he suggested, patting Mal's arm, "and then maybe we can sit on the porch swing for a while, alright?" That ought to make Mal feel better.

"Okay," the other man agreed readily.

 

The restaurant was noisy and crowded, full of post-Christmas diners in good spirits. The Tucker clan would fit right in, though Trip wasn't sure how Mal would handle it—he didn't have much experience with restaurants, after all. Trip made sure to put him between himself and Pop when they finally slid into the booth surrounding part of the large cluster of tables to which they were assigned. Immediately Mal curled his legs underneath him on the seat—but at least he hadn't said anything about eating on the floor. Yet.

Menus were distributed and discussed, but Mal didn't seem too interested in scrolling through the various dishes on the screen, instead fidgeting nervously. Trip began to wonder if he would be able to eat at all in this place. Then Trip had a brilliant idea—or rather, it was the server's idea.

"Could we get another set of those?" Trip asked politely, indicating the cheap electro-film with kids' games and pictures the restaurant handed out to keep their younger customers amused—and the color wand that would _only_ mark on the film, thus saving the restaurant's furnishings from their younger customers. The server looked a little bemused—Trip realized belatedly that Southern charm was less potent when you were already _in_ the South and surrounded by it every day—but after a moment she returned with another film and color wand, identical to those she had given the McCaffrey kids. Trip presented them to Mal.

"Why don't you go play with the kids for a little bit," he suggested, nodding toward the end of the table where Connery, Emmaline, and Annabel were huddled—also kneeling on their seats—over the games.

"Really?" asked Mal, relief tinged with uncertainty.

"Yeah, just don't get too noisy, okay?" Trip added. "I'll order for you."

"Okay," Mal agreed happily.

Trip started to look around the table, trying to decide if it would be less trouble to ask his end or Pop's to slide out for a moment—but Mal solved that dilemma by slithering under the table, film and color wand in hand, popping up seconds later among the children. Trip shook his head and went back to studying the menu.

"'Connect the dots to see a picture of Chippy's favorite animal,'" Mal read, squinting at the film. He frowned. "The restaurant has a favorite animal?"

Annabel shrugged, poking him with her wings. "My favorite animal is a butterfly," she informed him. "We have one in our class. But it's in a cocoon right now."

"Hmm, that sounds nice," Mal commented, beginning to draw lines between the dots with his color wand. "I should like to be in a cocoon."

"It's a magic cocoon," Annabel went on, studiously coloring one of the pictures on the film. "They go in a caterpillar and all the parts get switched around and they come out a butterfly."

Mal reconsidered his desire. "I shouldn't like to come out as something different, though."

"Mal, help me with the maze!" Emmaline insisted. "I can't help the chicken find its way home!"

"Hey, Mal, wanna play tic-tac-toe with me?" Connery asked, leaning perilously across the table.

His mother grabbed the back of his pants and pulled him more or less back into his seat. "You're old enough, you can sit down like an adult," Katie told him.

"But Mal's doing it," Connery whined in a very un-adult tone. An older person would have successfully interpreted his mother's look as saying, _That's no excuse_.

"What animal is this supposed to be?" Mal queried with confusion, looking at the drawing he'd produced.

Emmaline leaned over to look. "Mine was a cow," she supplied, before realizing the problem. "Mal, you did it all wrong!" She shoved her piece of film on top of his by way of demonstration. "See, you have to connect the dots _in order_ , by the numbers."

"Oh," Mal commented. "I wondered what the numbers were for. They should really say something about that in the directions, don't you think?"

"Okay, it's your turn," Connery cut in, sliding his film over to Mal. He pointed to the upper left corner where a number of tic-tac-toe cross-hatches had been printed.

"How do I play this game?" Mal inquired of him.

"Help me color the vegetables, Mal!" Annabel requested, tugging his arm.

"I'm still stuck in the maze," Emmaline reminded him.

Trip glanced down the table and saw that Mal was fully occupied with all three of the children poking at him and demanding his attention. Trip smiled a little bit—Mal would be able to manage them, he was certain. But as long as he was distracted… "C'mere, little bug," Trip told Astraia, lifting her from her baby seat onto his lap. Trip didn't _really_ think Mal would be jealous, but after the 'buddy' incident earlier that day he didn't want to take any chances. Fortunately Mal was getting more than enough attention himself at the moment.

"So what color should we use on the broccoli? Green?" Mal guessed, clicking his color wand to the appropriate shade.

"I'm going to make it pink," Annabel declared.

"Broccoli isn't pink," her older brother countered knowingly.

"My teacher says, we don't have to color something the way it is in real life," Annabel shot back loftily. "It's _art_."

"It's _dumb_."

"Connery," his mother warned.

"She wants to color the broccoli pink!" he protested, clearly seeing this as reason enough for outrage.

"Well, let her, she's only six," Katie insisted, attempting to go back to her conversation with her father and stepmother.

"I shall make mine purple, then," Mal decided with a freeing flourish. Connery rolled his eyes in an exaggerated gesture of exasperation. The things he had to put up with.

"Mal!" Emmaline whispered, poking him in the shoulder. "You're supposed to color inside the lines."

"Oh. Really?" Mal looked dubiously at the purple splotch covering the top half of his broccoli depiction. He'd only been imitating Annabel's style.

"My teacher says, we don't have to stay in the lines if we don't want to," Annabel informed them primly.

"Your teacher's a nutter," Connery retorted succinctly.

"Mum!" Annabel began to wail.

"Hush, hush," Mal insisted, remembering Trip's admonition to not get too loud. He put his arm around the little girl, narrowly avoiding the wings. "Just ignore him if he says something mean."

Farther down the table Trip was engaged in teaching baby Astraia to stick out her tongue on command. "Oh, that's a good girl," he cooed. "Show us that nice, pink tongue!"

"I don't think she's gonna do it," Eddie opined sadly. "I've been working on it ever since she was born. She's just no good at learning tricks."

"Well, as we've established, she's not a _dog_ , Eddie!" his wife protested, shaking her head.

"Yeah, the dog's smarter," Eddie agreed without malice.

"Don't worry, Eddie," Trip assured his brother. "She'll get smarter as she gets older. I mean, when I first got Mal he wasn't the brightest bulb in the box, you know? But now—" They both looked down the table to where Mal and the three children were earnestly trying to balance spoons on their noses.

"Yeah, he's pretty cool now," Eddie nodded. They quickly turned away just as Katie caught sight of the display and quashed it, fearing their older sister would somehow implicate them as well.

"So there's hope for the little bug yet," Trip concluded optimistically.

A few minutes later the server arrived with their meals and began passing them out. "Hey, Mal," Trip called, setting a platter down in the empty spot between Pop and himself. Receiving no response, Trip glanced to the end of the table where Mal was hunched over a film with Annabel, color wands in hand, identical expressions of concentration on their faces.

"Annabel, I'm not going to tell you again," Katie warned her daughter.

"Mal, I'm gonna tell them to just take this food away if you don't want it," Trip threatened his friend.

Both Mal and Annabel looked up with frowns, then, realizing what was good for them, scurried back to their rightful seats. In both cases this involved disappearing under the table again before reemerging between two other diners.

"Now, I got you chicken fingers, buffalo wings, and some veggies," Trip explained to Mal, just loudly enough for the people around them to hear as well.

"Ooh, my favorite," Mal replied happily, and Trip rolled his eyes at the common response.

The table quieted somewhat as the family began eating, although it wasn't long before conversation broke out again. You couldn't keep a group of Tuckers from chatting for very long.

Trip kept watch on Mal from the corner of his eye, noting with amusement that the other man fastidiously cut his finger food into small pieces which he then speared with his fork. Trip smirked and took a big bite of his juicy double bacon cheeseburger, which barely fit into his mouth. Excess ketchup and mustard squelched out and plopped onto the plate below. Mal wrinkled his nose and dabbed at his own mouth with his napkin, even though there was no visible mess.

Conversation flowed around them for a few minutes as they exchanged gossip they had learned at Granny's house the day before, updated their plans for the rest of the holiday, and traded food. Trip had almost forgotten he was waiting for something when suddenly a voice joked, "So, Mal, how do you like those _buffalo wings_?" It was Steve. Oh good. "Bet you never had buffalo before, huh?" He grinned and winked at Lizzie, who rolled her eyes.

Mal pinned the man with a perfect look of cold loathing, drawing it out just long enough to cause discomfort. Trip was sure he'd learned that from T'Pol. "Buffalo wings are made of chicken," Mal pointed out, voice slow and deliberate. "Real buffalo don't even _have_ wings. Nor do chickens have fingers, for that matter," he added, gesturing at the other item on his plate.

"I-I knew that," Steve squeaked lamely. Mal gave him a look that suggested he found that very doubtful, then went back to his meal. Trip hurriedly raised his napkin to his face to cover his smirk, but Lizzie kicked him under the table anyway. Well, that was fair, Trip decided; he _had_ set that up, although he hadn't known who exactly would fall into his trap. But Steve was a pretty good option.

 

"Mal, do you want a doggie bag?"

Mal looked up at Lizzie sharply, staring for a long moment. "No, thank you," he finally said politely. "I know how to use the bathroom."

Lizzie gave him a look of confusion as Trip choked a little on his iced tea. "Doggie bags are for Porthos when he takes a walk on the ship," he explained to his sister leadingly.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part is unfinished and contains some incomplete, random scenes.

_Sunday_

Trip stopped dead in the dining room doorway, staring at the oh-so-familiar figure sitting at the table cutting into a pile of fresh pancakes. A grin broke out on his face. "What are you doin' here?" he asked delightedly, approaching the table.

Jonathan Archer looked up from his food and smiled. "Having breakfast. Hope you don't mind."

"Mind? You're sittin' at my ma's table eatin' _my_ pancakes," Trip teased, sitting down. "Why would I mind?"

"These are the _best_ pancakes," Jon assured him, taking another bite. "Good thing I got up early enough to get the last of them," he added mischievously.

Trip made a squawk of protest. "I don't get any pancakes?! Ma!"

"Oh, hush, you," his mother chided pleasantly, waltzing into the room with another platter piled high. "Anything you need, Jon, dear?" she inquired.

"No, thank you, Mrs. Tucker," Jon replied. "Everything is just delicious."

"Well you just let me know," she insisted to him. She ruffled Trip's hair fondly and Jon suppressed a smirk. "I'll get you some juice, baby."

Trip reddened just a tad. "Uh, maybe some coffee, too, if you have it," he called after her, trying to sound more like a grown-up.

"Nice sweater," Jon commented as Trip dug in.

Trip sighed. "Yeah, my granny got it for me," he admitted, tugging at the collar of the hideous fuzzy creation. "It was on sale, you know." Jon grinned and nodded. "So what are you doin' down here?" Trip asked again.

Jon shrugged, feeling a little awkward all of a sudden. Maybe intruding on Trip's family holiday hadn't been such a good idea after all. "Well, I was visiting some relatives in upstate New York," he explained. "And I figured, since we all have to head back to San Francisco tomorrow anyway…" He trailed off.

Trip smiled. "We can just ride together," he finished. "Great idea."

"Really?" Jon asked, letting his uncertainty show just a bit.

"Yeah, sure," Trip agreed. "It'll give me something to look forward to."

Jon relaxed a bit, relieved, just as Mrs. Tucker returned with a tray full of beverages. "There you go, baby," she announced, setting orange juice, coffee, and a glass of milk down in front of Trip.

Jon eyed the abundance of liquid after Mrs. Tucker had left. "I guess it's important to stay hydrated, in a warmer climate," he remarked, straight-faced.

Trip rolled his eyes. "The milk is really for Mal," he revealed, taking a swig. "He gets one sip, and one sip only, of a morning."

Jon shook his head sadly. "He's becoming a milkaholic."

On cue, Mal breezed through the dining room. "Oh, good morning, Captain," he greeted off-hand, then continued through to the kitchen. Trip just smirked.

"You two match!" Jon noticed, amazed Mal would consent to don such a monstrous article of clothing.

"He got one from my granny, too," Trip told Jon, rolling his eyes.

"Because they were on sale," Jon replied knowingly.

Trip nodded. "And he _insisted_ that we wear them today," he added, shaking his head. "I don't know why he's so fascinated by the idea of us dressin' alike—not like we come from a ship where everyone's wearing the same uniform or anything."

"Well, _he_ doesn't have a uniform," Jon pointed out.

Trip shrugged. "I guess."

"So how's he doing?" Jon asked, a little more seriously. He knew Trip had been just a _tiny_ bit worried about how Mal would deal with all the new people and experiences.

"Well, he threw my cousin Ron in the pool when he got kinda drunk and disorderly," Trip recalled.

Jon nodded understandingly. "Good for him. Your cousin Ron is a real d—k."

Trip flashed a smile before continuing. "Took Ma's coffee maker apart. Thought my baby niece was a dog. Ended up on the ceiling a few times. Oh, and if anyone asks," Trip added seriously, "you don't know _anything_ about him being a Christmas elf, if you know what I mean." Jon had no idea. "Also, there's some confusion about Santa Claus and Jesus and the Suliban Cabal, but it's possible he's messing with me on that one. And the less said about him wanting to get pregnant, the better. But other than that he's been real good."

Jon blinked at him. "I almost wish this were a regular mission, because I would _love_ to read your report on it."

Trip smirked. "He really likes it here, I think," he went on. "And Ma and Pop just spoil him rotten. My sister's kids think he's the best thing since pepperoni pizza."

"Good," Jon commented approvingly. "Well, I didn't think he'd have any trouble, you've got a pretty welcoming group here."

"Don't I know it," Trip responded, and Jon thought he sounded just a little bit melancholy all of a sudden—probably thinking of how he would have to leave again tomorrow.

"But did Aunt Tammy pinch his butt?" Jon asked, trying to lighten the mood. "That's the real question."

Trip grinned again. "No, she's waitin' for _you_ to come back," he answered impishly. "Pining for you's more like."

Mal trotted back in with an armload of food items to deposit on the table, then curled up in a chair before his own pile of pancakes. "Got the gingerbread boy-shaped ones, I see," Trip observed as Mal drowned the stack in three kinds of syrup.

"Mmm, yes, I think they taste the best," Mal told him. "Ooh, you have _milk_." He eyed the glass greedily.

"You can have all the rest," Trip replied, and Jon's eyes widened in surprise—the glass was at least half full. Mal wasn't one to question a good thing, however, and reached for it eagerly. Before he could grasp it, though, Trip said, "Oh, wait a minute," drained the glass nearly dry in several gulps, and set it back on the table. Mal gazed at the pitifully small amount of milk remaining. "What's wrong?" Trip teased, straight-faced. "Don't you want it?"

Mal snatched the glass away and sucked the spoonful of milk down, licking the inside of the glass as far as he could reach. All the while he gave Trip a dark look. "Have you heard, Captain Archer," he began pleasantly, "the story about Running Bare?"

Trip choked slightly on his food. "Mal," he warned.

"Sounds fascinating," Jon encouraged.

"Mal," Trip repeated more forcefully, staring at the dark-haired man. There were just some stories that _certain_ people didn't need to know about. Mal merely smiled smugly and went back to his breakfast, as if to say, _I_ could _tell it any time I wanted_.

Jon was intrigued by the interplay but sensed this was not the right time to go into it. "I hope I'm not interrupting any plans you guys had for the day," he mentioned instead.

"Nah, we didn't have anything in mind," Trip assured him. "I think we're takin' the house lights down. And Katie and Ian and the kids are leaving today."

"Oh, that's too bad," Jon remarked, trying to sound sincere. He'd met Trip's older sister on only one occasion and it was not exactly one of his fondest memories.

Trip smirked a little, remembering the same incident. "It's probably a good thing," he countered lightly. "Wait 'til they find out _Enterprise_ 's captain is in the house, they won't give you a moment's peace."

Suddenly a deep woofing was heard somewhere in the house. "Is that Blue still?" Jon asked pleasantly.

"Same ol' coon hound," Trip grinned.

"Charles Tucker, did you let that dog into the house?!" Mrs. Tucker shouted from another room.

"No!" Trip yelled back indignantly, at full volume. Mal winced slightly.

"The _Second_!" his mother corrected, still sounding irked.

"Uh, maybe," a sheepish voice replied from somewhere else in the house.

 

"Oh, hey, uh, Mal—" Jon began, sounding the tiniest bit uncertain. Trip and Mal looked at him curiously and Jon told himself it was silly to be nervous. "I got you a present, for Christmas," he finished, trying to sound casual. Feeling he had, however, _failed_ to sound casual, Jon quickly turned back to his bags on the bed and dug out the gift.

Mal gave a little gasp and Trip hastened to reassure him, even as he was grinning at Jon. "Now don't get all bent out of shape, buddy," he advised Mal. "Remember how you helped me find that gift for Jon? So you helped get him something first."

"Oh, of course I remember, it was only a few days ago," Mal told him, staring eagerly at the gift bag Jon had produced. "That old metal thing was _so_ filthy, it took me _hours_ to clean it!"

Jon lost his trepidation and narrowed his eyes at the engineer. "Trip! You told me you _found_ that sextant in mint condition!"

"Yeah, well…" Trip squirmed a bit, but not too much. "I didn't want you to feel _obligated_ to get Mal a gift," he attempted.

"Oh, well then," Jon replied sarcastically, rolling his eyes.

Mal looked from one man to the other, noting that humans could be quite silly when it came to gift-giving. Which meant _his_ gift might possibly be in jeopardy. "Oh, please, can't I have a present, Trip?" he begged. "Please? _Please_?"

"Well, yeah, of course," Trip answered and Mal threw his arms around him in delight.

"Oh, _thank_ you, Trip! You're _so_ generous!"

Trip and Jon shared a look that said, _What can you do with this guy?_ "Well, Jon's the one givin' you the present," Trip pointed out. " _He's_ the one you oughta thank."

Mal hopped across the room and embraced Jon promptly. "Oh, thank you, Captain! You're so thoughtful to bring me a present!"

Jon patted Mal's back as Trip snickered at him. "Well, um, wouldn't you like to _see_ the present?" Jon suggested, as Mal seemed content to rock him back and forth with hugs.

"Oh. Alright," Mal agreed, as though this was entirely optional. Trip sat down on the edge of the bed so Mal would scamper back over to him, freeing Jon.

"Well—here you go," Jon offered, holding the gift bag out to Mal.

"Oh, it's _so_ pretty," the dark-haired man enthused, admiring the shiny blue paper of the bag.

Trip smirked up at Jon. "You might wanna sit down," he suggested. "This could take a while." Jon took his advice.

"Trip, look how pretty it is!" Mal insisted, holding the bag up for the other man's admiration.

"Well, it sure is," Trip agreed indulgently. "Sure was nice of the Captain to get you a pretty bag for Christmas."

Mal gave him a look. "Trip, the _bag_ isn't the present," he pointed out gently. Jon covered his grin with his hand. "The present is _inside_ the bag."

"Oh," Trip nodded. "I get it. Well, then, why don't you _open_ the bag?"

Mal did so. Jon watched eagerly, anticipating Mal's reaction to the gift—the _actual_ gift, that is, not just the wrapping. He hoped Mal liked it. He hoped Mal liked it and that Trip wouldn't be disappointed in his gift-giving skills.

Mal fumbled with the clasp on the bag, closing and unclosing it repeatedly, maddeningly. "How clever!" he declared, as Jon squirmed impatiently.

"I saw this while I was up at the Lakes," Jon informed them, trying to encourage the gift opener, "and it reminded me of you, Mal."

"Ooh, really?" Mal asked excitedly, looking up from his labors. "Is it edible?"

Jon's face fell a bit. "Um, well, no…"

"Mal, would you quit messin' around and open it?" Trip urged. He gave Jon an apologetic look. "Sorry, he just doesn't really _get_ presents yet."

Mal looked up at him in confusion. "What do you mean? I've got a present right here."

Trip patted his head. "Well get on with it, then."

Finally Mal opened the bag and pushed the paper filler aside to reveal the gift within. Trip craned his neck, trying to see. Jon shifted uncomfortably on the bed. After a moment Mal looked back up. "I don't understand. What is it?"

Jon launched himself from the bed and crouched down beside Mal, reaching into the bag. "It's a monkey!" he explained, lifting the object out. "Er, a _toy_ monkey." Mal blinked at the small brown stuffed animal curiously. Jon twitched the monkey and its long limbs and tail dangled invitingly. Mal gasped sharply and grabbed for the toy.

"Oh how _wonderful_!" he exclaimed, examining the movement possibilities of the toy. "Lookit, lookit, Trip! Look, it can do _this_ , and _this_ , and _this_!" He demonstrated various painful-looking contortions the soft toy could be bent into.

"Well I think that's real nice," Trip commented, giving Jon a smile. "Reminded you of Mal, huh?" he added with a smirk.

"Flexible, likes to climb on things, eats fruit…" Jon pointed out modestly.

"Good choice," Trip nodded.

Mal tugged insistently on Trip's pant leg. "Trip. Trip! What kind of noise does a monkey make?"

"Er, well, I don't really know how to describe it," Trip answered lamely.

Mal gave him a serious look. "But I _must_ know what noise a monkey makes, so I can properly name my toy monkey."

"Right, of course," Trip agreed. Jon gave him a look that said, _And you think that's a good reason because…?_ "Er, well, they kind of… chatter, don't they?"

He looked to Jon for assistance and was met with blankness. "Um, I don't know—I remember them being kind of… shrieky," the older man admitted.

"Maybe we could just look it up," Trip suggested, but Mal leaned against him, preventing movement.

"Can't you make the monkey noise, Trip?" Mal requested earnestly. "I _must_ know what noise the monkey makes! Or I shan't be able to name my new toy!"

Trip was by no means shy, and he was additionally sitting in his parents' house with his two closest friends. So he acquiesced and made the monkey noise. "Well, I think it's kinda like—EEEeee-AAAaaa-EEee-OOoo-Aaaaa!"

Jon dropped back on the bed, laughing. Trip was laughing, too, messing up the tail end of the monkey call. Mal looked up at Trip seriously. "Oh dear, I was thinking of something else for a moment there, Trip," he admitted. "I missed your monkey noise. Could you make it again, please?"

Jon gave a fresh burst of laughter, as Trip stared at Mal. He blinked back earnestly, so Trip took a deep breath and made the monkey noise again, more creatively this time. "EEEeee-AAAaaa-EEEEEE-OOOO-Eeee-aaaa!" He cleared his throat. "Was that better?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, Trip," replied Mal sadly, "but Captain Archer was laughing too loudly for me to hear properly. Would you mind making it one more time?"

"Well—hey!" Trip caught the gleam in Mal's eye and knew when he was being teased. The realization set them all off again. "You like hearin' monkey noises so much! I'm not surprised, you practically _are_ one!"

When the three of them had finally calmed down a bit, Mal gave his new toy a long, thoughtful look and decided, "I think I shall call it—EEEeee-Brown-Monkey… Captain-Cookie-Trip."

"Captain Cookie Trip?" Jon repeated, mystified.

"Hey, the Captain part's for you," Trip pointed out with a grin.

"I think he shall be great friends with my Chitter-Blue-Hamster-Poogle-Pudding-Trip," Mal declared with great satisfaction. Then he glanced up at Trip. "But only in a pretend way, of course, because they aren't actually real."

"Glad you realize that, buddy," Trip told him, patting his head again.

Jon was still trying to wrap his mind around the toy names. "Hamster-Poogle-Pudding? What happened to just naming something… Ploppy?"

Mal rolled his eyes at Jon. "Oh, Captain, that was when I was _much_ younger and less sophisticated."

"It was just last year, wasn't it?" Jon insisted to Trip, who just shook his head as if to say Jon would never win this argument.

Mal cradled the stuffed monkey carefully in his arms. "Perhaps I shall call him Baby Trip for short," he mused. "I can practice with him!"

"Practice what?" asked Jon, though he was slightly afraid of the answer.

Trip stood abruptly, stepping over Mal. "Well, let's not dawdle up here all day," he announced shortly. "Let's see if Ma's got lunch ready yet."

 

 

Jon and Trip settled down onto the couch and Trip flicked the comm screen on, trying to find something decent to watch. Not that what was on the screen really mattered, as Mal stood in front of them assessing the seating arrangements pensively.

"You make a great window, Mal," Trip cracked, trying to bend around him. The other man ignored the comment, moving only when Trip patted the couch between him and Jon invitingly. Mal flopped down on the middle cushion, squirming around to put his head on Trip's lap. "Don't put your shoes on the couch," the engineer warned, so Mal moved his feet to Jon's lap instead.

"How come _I_ always get the back half?" Jon asked, awkwardly resting his arm on Mal's hip for lack of any other usable location.

"Just lucky, I guess," Trip smirked.

"Is he asleep?" Jon whispered a few minutes later.

Trip glanced down at the warm lump in his lap. "Yeah, I think so."

 

_Later_ … "Hey, Mal, wake up," Trip said suddenly, poking the other man's shoulder.

Jon looked at him curiously. "Is something wrong or—"

Mal jerked to consciousness, eyes wide. "Trip! Oh, Trip!" he gasped. "I was having a bad dream!" He nearly kicked Jon several times as he scrambled more into Trip's embrace.

"I know you were, buddy," Trip agreed, rubbing his back soothingly.

"Oh, it was _terrible_!" Mal moaned, attempting to burrow into the other man. "The horrible professor from _Frosty the Snowman_ was chasing me!" Jon quirked an eyebrow.

"I knew I shouldn't have let you watch that," Trip admitted. "But it was just a dream, buddy."

"He was trying to steal the fruit Granny gave me!"

 

_Monday_

Archer was beginning to rethink his first-night-back dinner idea. He had thought it might be nice to have a meal in the Captain's Mess with his First Officer and Chief Engineer, kind of a celebration of being back on the ship and ready to start their adventure anew. Better than eating alone in his cabin thinking about the people he was leaving behind, anyway.

But so far it hadn't turned out to be much of an improvement. Trip was positively melancholy, picking at his food. After a few lame attempts to keep conversation going Archer had given up and lapsed into silence. Seeing that her fellow officers were quiet, T'Pol remained that way as well, and probably preferred it.

It was a little frightening to Archer to realize that the only remaining hope for a pleasant meal lay with—"Commander T'Pol, would you like to hear _everything_ I learned while visiting Trip's family for the holidays?" Mal asked eagerly.

Archer thought _he_ had already heard everything there was to tell, though he confessed he didn't remember much of it. Mal had redefined the would 'prattle' on the very long trip from Pensacola to San Francisco earlier that day, while Trip stared moodily out the window and Archer made half-hearted noises of acknowledgement, brooding over Trip brooding.

"I should not like to hear _everything_ ," T'Pol informed him. "But you may tell me a limited subset. Perhaps three items."

"The top three," Archer suggested with a forced smile.

"Think carefully," Trip cautioned him, more wan than playful.

The table fell silent again, but only for a few minutes. Mal had no doubt been going over the memories in his head for some time already. "Okay," he announced. "The first most important thing I learned is that Trip's family is already multi-species, so they didn't mind at all that I wasn't a human. And they love me and I love them. Well, most of them."

Trip patted his head with a small smile. "That's right. Mal was a big hit all around."

"Multi-species?" Archer questioned, having frantically tried and failed to recall any of Trip's immediate family members marrying an alien. Which you'd think would be easy enough to remember as Archer had never heard of any such marriages involving a human before.

"Oh, sure, they've got dogs and fairies and things like that, as well as humans," Mal assured him.

"Fairies?" T'Pol repeated, bemused.

"Uh, well, that's just my niece, she had this pair of wings she wore everywhere—" Trip gave up trying to explain. "It's a long story."

"Well, I'm glad you got along with them so well," Archer told Mal.

"Indeed, it is far preferable to being feared and loathed for being different," T'Pol concurred, somewhat unhelpfully.

"What's the second thing?" Archer followed up quickly.

"Well, the second thing, Captain," and Mal popped up on his knees right by Archer's chair, "is that I think we should have a hot tub on _Enterprise_."

"Oh really," Archer smiled. "And why is that?"

Mal launched into his proposal. "Hot tubs are very therapeutic. For example, you can soak in one after a long day of activity and relax."

"It's like a big bathtub full of water at a high temperature," Trip clarified for T'Pol.

"Yes, I had surmised as much," she informed him.

"Oh well then," Trip responded, rolling his eyes.

"Except you're supposed to wear a swimsuit in it," Mal added emphatically. "It's quite naughty if you don't."

"Good thing Trip's never naughty," Archer smirked.

"I strive to lead by example," Trip agreed nobly.

"A _negative_ example, maybe," Jon shot back with a grin.

Mal frowned at them. "D'you want to hear more about hot tubs, or just make fun of Trip?" he pouted.

"Given the choice…" Jon began. Mal gave him a look. "Hot tubs, please. Continue."

Mal opened his mouth to go on and paused. "I forgot where I was," he admitted, to Trip's amusement.

"Relaxing, therapeutic," Trip prompted.

"Oh yes," Mal agreed. He paused again. "That was about it, I think."

"Meditation can serve a similar purpose to this… hot tub," T'Pol observed. "But does not necessitate being wet, nor frequenting a communal locale."

"Oh, but hot tubs are also good for forming new social relationships," Mal countered. Trip tried to remember what event he might be referring to. "Lizzie says, she meets all kinds of interesting people in hot tubs."

"Hey now!" Trip chided quickly, while Jon tried to disguise his chuckle as a cough.

"Who is Lizzie?" asked T'Pol.

"Lizzie is my _little, baby_ sister," Trip replied, giving Mal a look. "And we are not gonna indulge in family gossip about her."

"It's not gossip, I heard her talking to Cousin Terri at Granny's house while she was petting me and feeding me cookies," Mal retorted primly. "She said she met Steve in a hot tub at a hotel in Miami Beach."

"Steve is Lizzie's, uh… flavor of the month," Trip said in answer to the question T'Pol was forming. "She's a very friendly, charming girl," he added airily. Jon smiled and wisely said nothing.

"I don't think something flavored like Steve would taste very good," Mal opined. "He smelled like seaweed. And pencils." Trip gave him a look that clearly said, _You are so friggin' weird, buddy._ "Anyway"—back to more important matters—"the hot tub was _so_ wonderful. It's so cozy and warm and _perfect_." He sighed blissfully, then continued leadingly, "I'm sure Dr. Phlox would think it was a good idea. It's just a larger version of the tub he's got in Sickbay already…"

"Think you'd better clear any major plumbing modifications with the Chief Engineer first, don't you?" Trip teased.

"I'll take the hot tub idea under advisement," Archer promised, moving them along. "What's the third thing?"

Mal stopped to lick his fork. "Gigolo Joe can fart on command."

There was a pause, then Trip started to laugh—a real, uninhibited belly laugh. Jon had missed hearing it and found himself joining in, although he had no idea what Mal was talking about.

"Who is Gigolo Joe?" T'Pol sounded like she didn't really want to know.

"My brother's dog," Trip gasped out. His face was turning red. "It was a trick our dad taught him…"

"Oh, G-d," Jon commented, still laughing. "Of course!"

"You just go up to him and say, 'Hey, Joe, what do you know?' and he farts, just like that," Mal continued, clearly impressed.

Jon and Trip laughed even harder. T'Pol looked from one to the other, utterly mystified. "Mal made him do it so much," Trip went on, barely intelligible, "that he would just let rip whenever he saw Mal!" The two officers cracked up all over again, Trip wiping tears of laughter from his eyes. "Mal thought he was the smartest d—n dog!"

"Gigolo Joe _is_ smart," Mal protested, clearly not understanding the extraordinary humor. " _I_ can't do that. Although," he admitted thoughtfully, "I've never tried…"

"Don't try, don't try," Trip and Jon insisted at the same time, laughing all the more. Trip slapped his hand on the table a few times, making the dishes rattle. Jon could hardly breathe.

"Captain, Commander, are you quite alright?" T'Pol asked with a Vulcan level of concern.

"I don't know why they think it's so funny," Mal commented, continuing with his dinner. Although perhaps he would get Trip's dinner out of this as well, since the engineer didn't appear to be eating it.

 

_Codas_

 

Dr. Phlox blinked at Mal. Mal blinked back expectantly from the biobed. Although, not as expectantly as he would have liked, apparently.

"While such a procedure _may_ be possible," the doctor finally allowed cautiously, "I'm not sure it would be advisable, let alone practical."

"But you _could_ do it, don't you think?" Mal pressed eagerly. "I think it would be _so_ wonderful! I'm sure Baby Trip wouldn't be any more trouble than Porthos. Perhaps they could play together!"

"Hmmmm," Dr. Phlox replied noncommittally, eyeing the nearest comm panel. This seemed like a discussion Commander Tucker should definitely be involved in. Or perhaps end.

 

Ramirez handed Commander Tucker the list of routine chores for the week with a slight sense of trepidation. This week they really needed to attend to one of the most-loathed maintenance tasks, and she feared that, having successfully escaped it for nearly a year, her time might have come around again.

"Ooh, time to add more grease to all the joints and pistons!" Tucker noted, with great amusement and anticipation. Ramirez knew he would do it himself in a heartbeat, if it were necessary. But did he really have to relish dumping it on someone else _quite_ so much? Especially when that someone might very well be _her_.

"Um, shall I check to see who's next in line, sir?" she asked hopefully. Perhaps someone had reported late to duty sometime in the last month and could take her place.

"No need, Ensign," the Chief Engineer assured her grandly. "Already got the appropriate person picked out, for the next couple of months _at least_." Ramirez gulped. What had she done to tick her boss off _that_ much? "C'mere, you," Trip ordered, looking down and somewhat behind him. Mal reluctantly crawled to Trip's side as Ramirez watched in bemusement. Trip patted the dark-haired man's shoulder. "Ensign, you just take him to the first panel and get him started." He grinned broadly as the other man frowned. "Mal's gonna be our little grease monkey for a while."

 

 

_Three months later…_

"Mail call!" Hoshi announced cheerfully, appearing in Engineering with a handful of data chips. After making her way around the main core she approached Trip at the plasma injector relay. "This must be something really special," she hinted leadingly, holding up a chip. "It took nearly a minute to stream in."

Trip looked quizzical. "Already got my periodicals for the month… I can't think what else it would be."

He reached for the chip but Hoshi smirked and pulled it back. "Actually, Commander," she informed him, "it's addressed to Mal."

"To _Mal_?" Trip repeated incredulously.

"To _me_?" Mal questioned from where he knelt at Trip's feet.

"All for you!" Hoshi replied, handing him the chip.

"Well if that don't beat all," Trip muttered.

 

Mal was lying across the bed, perusing the data pad still. He'd been contemplating his mysterious message all day, without a word of explanation about it, and it was driving Trip crazy.

Which of course Mal knew.

"So what's the big secret?" Trip prodded again.

"Oh, I don't know if I ought to share it with you," Mal taunted.

Trip climbed onto the bed, trying to read the screen over Mal's shoulder. "Come on, tell me!"

"I'm sorry, Trip," Mal decided seriously. "I just don't think you're mature enough to handle it."

At the mention of _maturity_ , Trip took the bait and launched into his best Mal impersonation. He began rocking the other man back and forth bodily, whining, "I wanna see it! Please please please! Just a little peek! Just for a second! _Ma-al!_ "

Mal giggled and gave in immediately. "Oh, alright!" He handed Trip the data pad.

Trip blinked. "That was easy. So what is it?"

"Oh, it's _so_ exciting!" Mal enthused. "Eddie's written a book!"

Trip's eyes widened. "What— _Eddie_? _My_ Eddie? My _brother_ Eddie? Geez, he was always pokin' at something but I never thought he'd actually _finish_ anything…"

Mal nodded eagerly. "It's going to be published soon and he's sent it to me to preview!"

Now Trip's eyes narrowed. " _You_? Why'd he send it to _you_? What's it about?"

"It's a science fiction novel!" Mal revealed. "And it has a wonderful, quirky, occasionally exasperating but always lovable alien in it… named Mel!"

Trip's jaw dropped. "Eddie wrote a book about _you_?!"

"Well, Mel is just _one_ of the characters," Mal clarified. "Though _quite_ important to the plot. It's set _two hundred years_ in the future, on a spaceship, and Mel is part of the crew along with other aliens and also humans, and they have all kinds of thrilling adventures…"

Trip frowned and began skimming through the text. "Am _I_ in here? _I'm_ in here, too, right?"

"Well," Mal teased, "there _is_ a bold, daring, impulsive, brilliant, kind-hearted engineer named… _Flip_."

" _What?!_ " Trip exclaimed. "You're kidding, right?"

"Yes," Mal assured him with a grin. "The engineer's name is actually _Fiona_."

" _Eddie made me a girl?!_ "

"Gigolo Joe even has a tiny part as an alien creature with digestive problems!" Mal added happily. "Isn't that sweet?"

Trip gave him a dubious look and scrolled back to the top of the file. "I'm gonna have to see _exactly_ what's goin' on in here… Is it any good?"

"Well, I find that his sentence structure tends to be a bit convoluted," Mal admitted, "but otherwise it was quite enjoyable…"


End file.
